What the DNC Ohio Election Report failed to address: My letter to H. Dean

[Time for change]

Here is a draft letter that I intend to send to Governor Dean. Any suggestions or criticisms will be welcome, and I will take them into account when revising this letter.


Dear Governor Dean:

I have much admiration for you and high hopes for your success as DNC Chairman. And I think that you would have made a fine, if not a great President. However, I have to tell you I believe that you are making a big mistake by embracing the recent DNC report on the 2004 Ohio election, which significantly under-plays the extent to which that election represents a threat to our democracy.

In particular, the repeated assurances of the lack of evidence for election determining fraud is misleading, gives a false sense of security to U.S. citizens, and in my opinion fails to encourage the kind of political climate that is needed in this country to facilitate meaningful election reform – given the fact that our country’s government and news media is heavily dominated by the Republican Party. I would think, as a minimum, before making such assurances in this high profile report, that care should have been taken to adequately address the prevalent arguments that fraud did indeed play a major role in determining the outcome of the Presidential election in Ohio, and therefore the United States.

But this report did no such thing, as I intend to make clear in detail below. I believe that the following issues are relevant to my point:


1. Failed, unlawful recount, and lack of cooperation from the Secretary of State
First and foremost, an assurance to the citizens of this country that fraud played no major role in the outcome of this election should be based on a full investigation. A fair, lawful and transparent recount of the votes, as mandated by Ohio law would be the first step in this process. Yet, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did everything in his power to prevent such a recount.

Samples for the recount were chosen in a non-random manner, contrary to state law, and every effort appears to have been made to ensure that results of the 3% sample recount would match election day results, so as to prevent the occurrence of county-wide hand recounts. Perhaps the most flagrant example of this was Sherole Eaton’s testimony that a Triad technician in Hocking County modified a vote tabulator prior to the recount and advised election officials on how to manipulate voting machinery to ensure that a hand recount would match the machine recount: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Z.shtml Ms. Eaton was fired from her job as a result of this transgression. How many others witnessed similar events but did not possess enough courage to risk their livelihood in order to make their observations public, as Ms. Eaton did?

Furthermore, Mr. Blackwell has steadfastly refused to testify under oath with regard to the numerous “irregularities” associated with the Ohio election, and has made every effort to bar the public from access to essential documents that might shed some light on what happened on election day. Under these circumstances, statements to the effect that evidence of massive election fraud sufficient to swing the election “have not been found” are misleading and inappropriate, especially when given extra credibility by virtue of the fact that these statements are made by the opposition party. On the contrary, the burden of proof should be put on Blackwell to show that fraud was not involved.


2. Implausibly low voter turnout in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County
On page 3 of Section IV of the DNC report, there is a discussion about how, in general, voter turnout is strongly related to the ratio of machines per voter. This is an important point and it makes sense because, as pointed out later in the DNC report, insufficient numbers of machines per voter can result in reduced voter turnout because of voters leaving the voting lines when they are unable to wait several hours to vote. However, in Cuyahoga County the normal relationship is inexplicably reversed, so that voting machines per voter is negatively associated with voter turnout. Other than to note this as a fact, the DNC report does not comment further on this very strange finding.

Richard Hayes Phillips, a statistical expert in identifying statistical anomalies whose findings have been widely publicized, has stated that there are at least 30 precincts in Cleveland with inexplicably low voter turnout, ranging as low as 7.1%. In addition, he noted at least 16 precincts where votes intended to be cast for Kerry were apparently shifted to other candidates: http://blog.democrats.com/node/812 , likely a result of non-aligned ballots, similar to the infamous Palm Beach County “butterfly ballot” of 2000. He then goes on to calculate that a 60% turnout in heavily Democratic Cleveland would have resulted in 22,000 additional votes for Kerry.

I have not thoroughly evaluated these claims of Phillips, but certainly voting machine tampering could explain the otherwise unexplained dual findings of low voter turnout in Cleveland and the negative relationship between voting machine allocation and voter turnout in Cuyahoga County. I believe that this anomaly deserves serious investigation.


3. Voter suppression through insufficient machine allocation – Franklin County
So-called “low voter turnout”, in addition to being due to actual low voter turnout, could also be due to fraudulent discarding of ballots (as suggested in point # 2, above), or it could be due to insufficient machine allocation, resulting in voting line waits of several hours, and the consequent need for many voters to leave before voting. There were numerous reports of this problem in Ohio on election day, most prominently documented in John Conyers’ U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff Report http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml . These reports came from predominantly minority and Democratic precincts, especially from Franklin County, where lines of between two and seven hours long were reported.

A study that looked at voting machine allocation per voter by precinct partisanship http://copperas.com/machinery/ showed that machine allocation was far less adequate in precincts that voted for Kerry. In fact, it appears from looking at the scatterplot that there were about 30 Kerry precincts where there was less than one machine per 440 registered voters, while there were no Bush precincts in this category. This same study showed that “voter turnout” decreased substantially in Franklin County as machine allocation decreased. And an extensive analysis by Elizabeth Liddle came to a similar conclusion http://uscountvotes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=63. This is consistent with the DNC report analysis for all of Ohio, as noted above. Furthermore, as Bob Fitrakis reveals, all this happened while 68 voting machines were available in Franklin County but held back http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/111704Fitrakis/111704fitrakis.html.

Richard Hayes Phillips calculates that this low voter turnout induced in Franklin County through the misallocation of voting machines resulted in approximately 17,000 lost votes for Kerry in Columbus alone. This is easy to understand, given the relationship between inadequate numbers of voting machines and “low voter turnout”, and the fact that this problem occurred very disproportionately in minority and Democratic precincts.

So, what does the DNC report have to say about this? It says that those who decided to leave the polls early because of long lines were split evenly between Bush and Kerry voters. This is simply unbelievable, given the highly disproportionate allocation of voting machines to Republican precincts. I think that statement is disturbing.


4. Anomalies in southwestern Ohio
Three large, heavily Republican counties in southwestern Ohio (Clermont, Butler, and Warren) provided Bush with a margin of 132,685 votes. These counties provided Bush with a margin of only 95,575 votes in 2000 – a difference of more than 37,000 votes compared to 2004, a year in which Kerry did considerably better than Gore in 2000. Each of these counties were among the top ten of Ohio’s 88 counties with regard to Bush vote margin compared to Bush’s vote margin in 2000.

Could this mean that these counties were trending even more Republican in 2004 than in 2000? Perhaps. But consider that the Democratic candidate for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Ellen Connally, a liberal African-American from Cleveland, and little known in southern Ohio, achieved 43.3% of the vote in these three counties in 2004, compared to only 31.0% for Kerry http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/connally.htm and actually polled more than 13,000 more votes than Kerry, though state-wide she ran considerably below Kerry.

Also consider the fact that part of the reason for Bush’s excess vote margin in the three counties was an extra-ordinarily large increase in voter registration from 2000, including a 30% increase in Warren County. Yet, according to the DNC report, an increase in voter registration was supposed to favor Kerry in 2004. Furthermore, Warren County was the site of the infamous lockdown, rationalized by the bogus excuse of national security, which allowed Republican officials to tally the Warren County vote in private http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/10/loc_warrenvote10.html.

What does the DNC report have to say about this? First, the report goes to great lengths to show that Kerry’s vote percentage state-wide was highly correlated with the percent of African-Americans, the percent vote for the Democratic Senatorial candidate, Eric Fingerhut, and the percent not voting “yes” on Issue 1 (the ban on gay marriage). It then goes on to suggest that because these trends fit the expected pattern, the evidence is strongly suggestive that widespread fraud did not occur.
The correlation of Kerry’s vote percent with that of the Democratic Senate candidate, the percent of African-Americans in a precinct, and not voting yes on issue 1 should not be a surprise. But Kerry only lost Ohio by 2.1%. Therefore, it is entirely plausible that there could be slight anomalies from the expected pattern that could account for much if not all of Bush’s 2004 vote margin, and yet would do little to diminish the overall pattern. The DNC report does not specifically mention the comparison of Fingerhut’s performance in Clermont, Butler, and Warren Counties, versus Kerry’s performance. Fingerhut polled 36.1% of the vote statewide, compared to 24.5% of the vote in Clermont, Butler, and Warren Counties http://election.sos.state.oh.us/results/SingleRaceSummary.aspx?race=S1 . Again, much less of a span than the differential for Kerry, who polled 49% statewide, versus 31.0 percent in Clermont, Butler, and Warren counties.


5. Late vote surge in Miami County
In Miami County on election night, after 100% of precincts had reported, an additional 19,000 ballots were reported, giving Bush an additional vote margin of about 6,000, while changing the total Bush and Kerry percentages by no more than three hundredths of a percent http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/983 . What makes this additionally suspicious is that Miami County reported a 20.9% increase in turnout for 2004, compared to 2000, despite a gain in population of only 1.4%, AND Miami County reported the second largest vote gain for Bush of Ohio’s 88 counties (2nd to Butler County), compared to his performance in 2000. The DNC report has nothing to say about this.


6. Vote switching in Mahoning County
According to the Washington Post, an investigation identified 25 electronic voting machines in Youngstown, Mahoning County, which transferred an unknown number of votes from Kerry to Bush http://www.ballotintegrity.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=printer_format&forum=DCForumID1&om=272&omm=0 . This was part of a larger national pattern, for which a review of the national Electronic Incidence Reporting System (EIRS) determined that 87 out of 94 reports of electronic vote switching to EIRS favored Bush http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=371211&mesg_id=371211 . The post report goes on to state “Due to lack of cooperation from Secretary of State Blackwell, we have not been able to ascertain the number of votes that were impacted or whether the machines malfunctioned due to intentional manipulation or error.”

What does the DNC report have to say about this? In Section VII, on electronic voting, it notes that it is not possible to determine the baseline accuracy of DRE machines. Then, in Section IX, “Experience on the Ground in Ohio”, the vote switching in Mahoning County is covered in exactly ten words. Also, one sentence is allocated to this issue in Section X of the report.


7. As yet uncounted ballots
There remain 106,000 ballots uncounted, including over 92,000 for which machine tallies have not indicated a choice for President, and about 14,000 uncounted provisional ballots http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1065 . Most of these come from areas where Kerry voters predominated. The DNC report does not specifically say how many uncounted ballots remain, though it does note that counting them all could not possibly overturn the election. That is true, when considered as an isolated issue. However, when combined with all the other issues that the DNC did or did not address in its report, these ballots could make the difference.


In conclusion, the DNC report barely touched on many widely publicized issues (only a portion of which I have covered in this letter) that suggest that fraud could have or was likely to have made the difference in the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. Addressing other issues, while failing to address these issues does not provide assurance that fraud was not pervasive in the 2004 election, though the DNC report suggests exactly that. The facts that Kerry won the Ohio exit poll by a statistically significant 4.2% and that no cooperation in investigating the possibility of fraud is forthcoming from the Secretary of State’s Office, add much additional weight to this problem. In my opinion, this is the most important issue facing us at this time, because until this issue is addressed we are unlikely to ever have a Democratic Congress, President, or Judiciary. Therefore, I beg you to distance yourself from this report and adopt a more assertive stance towards one of the most serious crises that this country has ever had.

[Twist_U_Up]

1. Very well done

I nominated. Its the least we can do. H Dean and the rest of the ruling elite (minus a few dems)are pulling the shades down on Election Fraud. I can`t figure it out,but for whatever reason they must want to keep losing elections and LOVE being biotch slapped by the neos

[glitch]

6. second that, also nominated. nt

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. The longer this willful turning away from the massive evidence of

electronic vote fraud lasts, the more likely it looks that there is complicity at the highest levels of the DNC.

They have to know the truth about what happened in 2004. Why are they pretending not to?

[Time for change]

16. Why do you think they would do that?

My thought is that the lack of aggressiveness is a tactical decision, based on the belief that if they are perceived to "cross the line" they will be pilloried in the MSM and therefore lose political ground.

I believe that this is the wrong tactical decision on their part, but I suppose that their are reasons to believe that they may be approaching this in the right way.

What conceivable reason would they have for being complicit in this?

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. I have been racking my brain to figure out why they would go along with

the GOP treason - which stealing the election was. At first I thought they might be secretly gathering evidence, intending to fight back. But this does not seem to ever have been the plan.

As more time passes with no evidence that they will ever budge from their stated position that although there were "problems" with the 2004 election, they were not of great enough magnitude to affect the result, they continue their silence about the massive, widespread electronic vote fraud that was the central engine of the treason. Oh, the long lines and dirty tricks were back-up measures of the GOP in case the electronic approach didn't work, but it did and I imagine the GOP would be quite willing to pretend to be "honest" and hand out more machines now that they know they could manipulate the votes made on them. After all, that way there would be less incriminating evidence of their crimes and they could make loud noises of "helping the minorities" and "voting for clean elections."

Nauseating, and it would work as long as the American public remains ignorant of what really happened last November.

The fact is, the evidence that fraud did happen and that it was of great enough magnitude to steal the election is clear. The Dems continue to deny it and speak only about those long lines, which most Dem voters know about - can't deny them when there are movies and news has leaked out. But fixing the long lines will not fix the central machine of fraud, and the DNC leaders must know that.

So WHY? WHY? WHY? Why don't the DNC leaders speak out on what really happened and will happen again unless the whole electronic voting system is drastically overhauled? (And it will NOT be changed without an aggressive public campaign backed by evidence of the proven consequences of the existing system.) Why not insist on voter-verified paper ballots, surely an obvious and fundamental necessity for clean elections? Why not mention that the existing paperless, trackless system, owned and operated in secret by GOP allies and with hackable "back doors" into the central tabulators, is a deliberate setup for fraud and was used as such? Why not do more to prevent the treason machine from being put into place during these past years?

Instead, we have gotten from the DNC silence except on those "long lines" and some miscellaneous matters. Not on the central machinery that has been installed and tested, piece by piece, and is now poised to determine every future election without the voters. (Remember that double-digit - I think it was 14% - last-minute "swing" from Cleland to Chambliss? How loudly did the Dems complain about that? Where were the calls for investigation? That was a trial run of the election-stealing machine.)

Not wanting to face the alternative, I have persisted in giving the DNC the benefit of every doubt. Surely they couldn't be THAT corrupt, I reassured myself. But the electronic voting companies wield massive amounts of money and influence - and do you think they'd ignore the Dems in their blandishments? The GOP have every reason to promise more toward Dems who would secretly promise not to fight. And there is always blackmail, and I'd be very surprised if the Bushies didn't have whatever dirt existed on every congressperson of any persuasion. Those people don't miss a trick and they are totally cynical in their machinations.

As "innocent" possibilities have become untenable because of the elapsed time without any sign of plans to oppose the GOP treason, I am forced to look harder at the "non-innocent" possibilities. The simplest is that some - a critical number - of the top Dems have secretly agreed to hold back from opposing electronic election fraud too strongly or saying anything about how the election outcome might have been determined by fraud rather than the voters.

And then there are the votes on the horrible Bush nominees and policies. Negroponte, Rice and Gonzales. The Bankruptcy law, so much other craven, corrupt legislation that they supported. The Iraq invasion and its continued support by many Dems. And of course, only Boxer in the Senate and a few brave souls in the House dared to contest the certification of the Ohio vote. We all have our own lists of infamy. What if it isn't just spinelessness? What if it's corruption too?

I don't want to believe this, but as all the other possibilities fall away, old-fashioned corruption is harder and harder to dismiss. I find myself remembering the statement of RFK Jr that 95% of the GOP and 75% of the Dem congresspeople are corrupt. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2999611)

And I'm finding that after months of denying it to myself, I fear he may be onto something. If so, only the most outspoken, huge public pressure will have any effect at all on Congress or the DNC. Investigating the voting machine-associated corruption links will need to be followed wherever they lead. And we must NOT be silent and simply assume that the Dems are the good guys so we can trust them. These are dark times, and we have to keep our eyes wide open. We have to investigate, expose, and pressure for the truth and for fair elections or democracy will not only be gone, it will be gone forever.

I would be greatly cheered if someone can argue effectively for a different conclusion, because I can't see one. There is just too much time and too many pieces in place. And too much silence from the DNC leadership all along. Now the new DNC Ohio Election report shows that that silence on the stolen 2004 election and the machinery that allowed it to happen will continue:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380878
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380494
Silence in the face of such crimes implies complicity.

I am not suggesting we give up. In fact, we must be louder and more determined than ever in getting the truth to the American public. We have to pressure the DNC to do what is right, and if these dark suspicions are correct, we need even more public pressure than ever to make a difference.

[understandinglife]

19. I have no reason to dispute RFKjr's assessment. With few exceptions, ....

.... I see no evidence of elected representatives serving anything other than the needs of Corporations and the greed of the ultra-wealthy.

Our options are limited, but increasingly it is clear we have an expanding international coalition of the willing, to help us bring justice to those who are responsible for vast misery and death:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3957704&mesg_id=3957704

And, we have truly brave leaders who very much need millions of us to stand with them and return America to the status of a Nation respectful of the law and of humanity:

Members of Congress, from left to right, Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) head down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, June 16, to deliver petitions demanding President Bush tell the truth on Downing Street Memo evidence that he lied to sell the Iraq war to the American people.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7266/1/275

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us - Any candidate worthy of our vote in the 2006 Congressional elections should have filed charges against Bu$h and the neoconsters before March 19 2006.

[Time for change]

21. Interesting but depressing thoughts

I must admit that I too am stymied. And I suspect that it may be a lot more complicated than any of us are aware. After all, corruption isn't an either or thing, these people probably have complex motives, and there must be shades of gray.

Did you read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"? It's a great book and a must read, and it reminds me of the things that you're saying.

Anyhow, I'm going to send a revised version of my Dean letter to the people who actually researched and wrote the report, to see if I can get any insights into their thinking. I'll also send it to Boxer and Conyers, in case they can make any use of it.

I sure hope somebody replies to it.

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. I have not yet "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" but know of its

hard-hitting importance. To be honest, I've held off reading it because I don't want to be even more depressed.

I'd love to see your revised Dean letter. If you don't plan to post it, could you please PM me a copy?

I agree - it's shades of grey, especially for many of the Dems. Not so simple, but we cannot afford to ignore that some of these people do NOT make their decisions based entirely on the greater good of all.

[Time for change]

23. Sure, I'll send it to you

I don't plan to post it because it won't contain any information that isn't contained in my original post for this thread, except that it will be more technical -- and less critical of the report itself because, after all, I would like a response. I'll probably do it either tonight or within the next 3 days.

I think you would like Confessions of an Economic Hit Man because it is extra-ordinarily insightful.

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. Thanks, I'll look forward to it. The continuing dialog is vital, and

we MUST make it clear that it is unacceptable to continue to ignore electronic election fraud and its impact on the 2004 election and all future elections if the system is not FUNDAMENTALLY reformed.

Voter-verified paper ballots - that's Andy Stephenson's mantra, and it should be ours too.

[Time for change]

29. You are absolutely right

We must keep an eye on our representatives and hold them accountable.

[Time for change]

36. Here are my letters to Congressman Conyers and Senator Boxer

Dear Congressman Conyers:

Because you are the leading voice in this country in the fight to take our Democracy back, I want to let you know how disturbed I am about the recent report by the DNC on the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. Enclosed is a copy of a letter that I just sent Governor Dean, which expresses how I feel about this report and why.


Dear Senator Boxer:

Because you are THE United States Senator who ensured that U.S. citizens would have the opportunity to become aware of the most serious crisis to face our country since 1865, I want to let you know how disturbed I am about the recent report by the DNC on the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. Enclosed is a copy of a letter that I just sent Governor Dean, which expresses how I feel about this report and why.


I also am sending them e-mails, with a link to this thread, so that they will have easy access to the links to the sources I used to compose the letter to Dean, and so that they can see the DU reaction to the DNC report.

And I am working on my letter to the academics who researched and wrote up much of the findings on which the DNC report is based.

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. This is a great start to turning this situation around!

...and :kick:

[Time for change]

47. I think it was this post that gave me the idea to write these letters:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=379633&mesg_id=379933

or possibly a very similar one on the same thread -- it's hard to know for sure because there are so many posts on that thread

[Twist_U_Up]

34. exactly the way I feel

you just saved me a lot of typing lol
Brilliant as always

[Nothing Without Hope]

35. Thanks. I'm thinking of posting some version of my rant as a separate

thread. (What do you think?) I think Dem complicity is a possibility that we cannot dismiss and must build into our plans. It doesn't mean we give up, but it DOES mean that we don't make certain optimistic assumptions about the behavior of the Dem leadership or individual congresspeople. We don't put ourselves into positions where betrayals are unexpected and therefore especially devastating.

Shades of grey - and we need to push them toward the lighter shades at the same time that we take this story to the PEOPLE. The whole sleight-of-hand GOP treason trick is predicated on silence and distraction. We need to turn over the trick table and show the secret machinery. The American people will not tolerate it if they know -- but it's looking like the Dem leadership will NOT tell them. It's up to us.

One of the careful balances to be maintained is to be realistic without losing hope or becoming so angry that no effective planning can be done based on the people and system we have to start with. I don't believe that trying to run with a 3rd party right now, jettisoning everything in the Dems, would be a winning strategy. So we have to be tough, smart, alert and loud.

We cannot allow the silence do its planned job of cementing the corruption into place permanently.

[understandinglife]

2. "the DNC report barely touched on many widely publicized issues"

.... The facts that Kerry won the Ohio exit poll by a statistically significant 4.2% and that no cooperation in investigating the possibility of fraud is forthcoming from the Secretary of State’s Office, add much additional weight to this problem. In my opinion, this is the most important issue facing us at this time, because until this issue is addressed we are unlikely to ever have a Democratic Congress, President, or Judiciary. Therefore, I beg you to distance yourself from this report and adopt a more assertive stance towards one of the most serious crises that this country has ever had."

Correct.

I hope he reads the letter and takes your sound advice.

Nominated and Thank you!

Members of Congress, from left to right, Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) head down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, June 16, to deliver petitions demanding President Bush tell the truth on Downing Street Memo evidence that he lied to sell the Iraq war to the American people. http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7266/1/275/

"... we sent our young people into harm's way without leveling with the American people." - Congresswoman Pelosi before Congress, 16 June 2005

Peace.


www.missionnotaccomplished.us - One question, my fellow Americans, "Why is Bush not already in jail?"

[Botany]

3. Nice letter ...

...... C. Ellen Connally beat Kerry in 19 of the 88 counties. That is more then
1 in 5 counties where an unknown underfunded candidate got more then the
top of the ticket. In the same counties Bush got thousands more then Tom Moyer
who was running for the same judge position as Ms. Connally.

In Greene County 3 or 4 Precinct that were located by 2 all black colleges
(Wilberforce and Central State) had 3,800 registered voters but produced
only 50 votes.

In Perry County 3 Precincts had voter turn out @ greater then 100%
turn out.

In Trumbell County more absentee ballots were cast then people who
registered for them.

In Franklin County a so called "Texas Strike Force" was housed @ the downtown
Holiday Inn with the Ohio Republican Party Picking up the Tab. They are reported
to have made harassing phone calls to African American voters before the election.

In Morrow County Bush got 67% of the vote in 2000 but had 60% in 2004 .....
why the drop in such a solid republican county? Could it be that county was not
fixed?

Frankly I was disappointed in the report .... no fraud? Come on Doc!

[petgoat]

4. Ambiguous Wording

"you would have made a fine, if not a great President."

I think you mean to say "a fine or even great President."

[southwood]

5. Hear, hear!

Well done, Time for Change! I've been reading this forum since Nov 4, and it's good to see that there are still folks here that have a complete grasp of the issue.

[EFerrari]

7. Thank you. n/t

[bunny planet]

8. Thank you for all your hard work on this and for sending the letter.

I sure hope Dr. Dean reads it and acts accordingly.

[vanboggie]

9. Excellent

Very well written. You have stated the exact reason the * Cabal is in power. Thank you for expressing the same views I have so eloquently.

[sunnystarr]

10. What a terrfic job! I'm so thrilled you're sending it to Dean...

thanks so much!

[Nothing Without Hope]

11. The DNC report is deeply flawed. To this day the DNC is refusing to admit

that the 2004 election was stolen. What's more, they are refusing to fight for changes that are necessary to prevent FUTURE elections from also being stolen. Electronic vote fraud mechanisms are in place and set to go again.

The DNC takes our support for granted. Shall we show them what we really think?

[KaliTracy]

13. This is a terrific letter. I have been

out of town for the last 5 days with no Internet access at all, and have yet to read the report.

I suggest you keep your eyes open, and if anyone, by chance, happens to report on the DNC report (I know, unlikely), that you send this letter to them as well, maybe changed slightly for audience if necessary, but to inform all media sources that there is still stuff that they could be investigating deeper (and tell them so).

[Time for change]

15. Thank you for the suggestion

If you become aware of anyone you think should see this, please let me know.

[Bill Bored]

14. Well done TFC!

I still need to read the DNC report, but I think you have covered many of the most important points without exaggerating them.

[Fly by night]

18. Great letter, TFC. I have already "cut and pasted" it into ...

... a letter to the Project Manager for the Brazile report, to make sure she/they see what they obviously missed with their report.

Your detailed letter has stimulated me to attempt a one page summary, to substitute for the current "no fraud" page 11 in the Brazile/DNC "Executive Summary", that will read as it should have. The evidence is overwhelming, except in the back pockets of beltway bandits. I will post that "one page" summary later today.

Thanks again for this great write-up. We not only have to be the media these days but also the high-paid (not) researchers and consultants as well. Oh well, who better than us?

We are the ones ....

[Time for change]

20. Thank you Fly by night

Please let me know how I can help with your efforts.

[Peace Patriot]

25. Time for Change, thank you for this excellent, detailed letter and

criticism of the DNC report. It is invaluable!

You might want to add something about the very narrow focus of the report--not just in the Ohio context but also as to other states and nationwide, which are ignored and excluded. For instance, there is evidence of electronic fraud throughout the east coast time zone (the weird exit poll red shift in that region); evidence of 130,000 to 260,000 "phantom votes for Bush" in Florida's three biggest Dem counties (the UC Berkeley study), in electronic vs. other methods of voting; major election shenanigans by Jeb Bush & co. in Florida; the DU study showing an inexplicable 9% edge to Bush in NC, electronic vs. paper; the USCV studies on similar issues; the New Mexico and west coast RNC-funded shredding of Dem voter registration cards; the facts about major Bush donors controlling the vote count with secret, proprietary software; the ALTERATION of the exit poll results by the TV networks--and lots of other major items that are not addressed in this report.

It seems to me that the stuff that went down in Ohio is reason enough to suspect foul play everywhere Republicans were in control, and regarding electronic vote counts generally--even without all this pile of evidence. But WITH this pile of evidence, the need for a comprehensive investigation of the 2004 election is very clear. Why the narrow focus?

This comment of yours was particularly astute:

"Mr. Blackwell has steadfastly refused to testify under oath with regard to the numerous 'irregularities' associated with the Ohio election, and has made every effort to bar the public from access to essential documents that might shed some light on what happened on election day. **Under these circumstances, statements to the effect that evidence of massive election fraud sufficient to swing the election 'have not been found' are misleading and inappropriate, especially when given extra credibility by virtue of the fact that these statements are made by the opposition party. On the contrary, the burden of proof should be put on Blackwell to show that fraud was not involved.**" --TFC (emphasis added)

Why have they gone out of their way to confirm this election? Why? Why? Why? THEY DON'T NEED TO DO THAT!

And they should be doing the opposite! They should be saying: Prove Bush won. Where is transparency? Where is verification? Where is plain old honesty and openness in government?

I see a parallel to Bush Cartel "intelligence" on Iraq. If your goal is to make an unprovable assertion--say, that Saddam had WMDs, or was tied to 9/11--you would come up with a report very much like this, which picks and chooses among facts, and colors facts as much as possible--and omits a whole lot--to create a false case for whatever it is that you want to do.

The goal of the DNC report was to make the unprovable assertion that there was not enough election fraud to change the result, and lo and behold, they choose and color facts--and omit a whole lot--to support that pre-fabricated conclusion. (In this case, the facts are so overwhelmingly against their prefab conclusion, that the truth slips through now and again!)

Thanks for having the patience to take this crappy piece of work apart--as it so much deserves!

-----------

I think some of the answer to the anguished cries about Democratic corruption that this DNC report has inspired can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

[Time for change]

28. Thank you for all your suggestions and kind words Peace Patriot

I will use some of this in my re-drafted letter (can't use all of it because I need to keep this reasonably short and not too aggressive, or else I'm afraid I might lose him). Definitely I should say something about the secret electronic software programs, which I left out of my first draft.

Also, I will be sending a modified version of this to some of the researchers who analyzed the data and wrote the report -- in an attempt to understand better their views on this. And I will be sending other versions to Senator Boxer, Congressman Conyers, and Cliff Arnebeck, to let them know that we are behind them, and in case they might find any of this useful.

Unfortunately, my printer is out of ink now, so this will have to wait a while.

[Stevepol]

26. Wow! What a wonderful analysis. I just got off the phone

with a friend of mine, also a "liberal" and when I brought up the electronic voting machines and the statistical discrepancies between the alleged actual vote and the exit polls, he listened with an open mind, but then he said something that's irrefutable. "If that's true," he said, "then why would Howard Dean and John Kerry and the rest of the Democrats not be raising holy hell about it?"

This I'm afraid is the point and it's just not explainable in any way I know. Until the Democrats decide to see the obvious, I don't see much that can be done.

I really like Howard Dean, but for some reason that I haven't fathomed when Dean and the others get a national stage, they just won't confront what seems to be the obvious culprit.

Maybe in time, somebody will decide to speak the truth. I'm still hoping Dean will eventually get the idea. In every survey from the DNC I receive I send it back with a note saying that I'm not sending one cent until they focus on the electronic voting as the number one priority. There has to be a paper ballot and required random audits for every election where the votes are counted by the DRE's.

[Peace Patriot]

27. Really, go that that thread I posted above, Stevepol, and your eyes

will be opened as WHY the Democrats have not screamed bloody murder about electronic voting and who controls the vote count. They have been BOUGHT--at the local/state level. Read that agenda for the Beverly Hilton event. A lot of those names are DEMOCRATS who are being wined, dined and corrupted by the electronic voting companies. And the "revolving door" employment on this matter is a scandal. (That's one of the things that CA Sec of State Kevin Shelley was adamant about--he was trying to put a stop to it. And that is among the reasons that THESE PEOPLE--our CA local election officials, some of whom are participating in this hogfest in Beverly Hills--helped get rid of him.)

The elections officials in turn have influence over, and power over, our other elected officials. And I believe that non-election electronic db contracts in gov't are also part of this very corrupt picture. We've got to start weeding these people out of our party. And I am verging upon becoming a Luddite about it (anti-industrial machinery). We might have to do a litmus test--paper ballots/hand counts as the only correct position to hold, given the vast corruption associated with these electronic voting systems.

The next time you talk to your liberal friend, ask him/her if they know whether or not THEIR country registrar is going to the Beverly Hilton on August 10 for a week of fun and games with Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. And is that official a Democrat?

[Blue Shark]

32. One outside possibility...

...although (IMHO) quite unlikely is this;

Nothing is going to change regarding the way we vote and the way the votes are counted. Over the past three election cycles the republicans have picked of the WH, the Senate, the US House, and the media and the judiciary have been tilting red for longer than that.

Given this reality, it might just be that "our guys" have decided to play by hte new rules i.e. "He/she who cheats best wins"

Wouldn't that be a sweet sight if 15-20 safe republican senators and 30-40 house races all go democratic with a nearly "inexplicable come-from-behind" victories.

And our answer: All together now... "Get Over It!"

[Time for change]

30. Yes, I feel much the same way that you do about this,

as well as numerous other DUers. I basically think that most of our Democratic leaders are good people and want to do the right thing, but I can't understand why they aren't much more aggressive about this issue. I'm not yet willing to accept the view of some, that we've been sold out by our own party (though I'm sure there are individual instances of that), but I DO understand why they feel that way.

[Nothing Without Hope]

38. I agree completely. As long as they remain silent about the scope of the

electronic fraud, NOTHING will change. Getting more machines for heavily-Dem districts will NOT solve the problem, only provide nice TV shots for preening politicians, UNLESS those machines provide a voter-verifiable paper ballot and the whole process is transparent and audited.

The DNC report is a whitewash of the most important part of the engine of election fraud. I beleve the silence of the Dem leadership on his issue has now passed the line into complicity with the coverup. Unless they are roused by public outcry to DO something, that election fraud machine will keep turning out predetermined results forever.

[pat_k]

31. Ask a simple question

Are hours-long poll-tax-lines for poor, minority voters AND none for affluent, white voters a tolerable condition for you? Do you reject the results of such an election or are you complicit with the perpetrators of this condition?

Our case is not complex. Keep it simple. Keep it stark.

A long wait is a defacto poll tax (time is money) -- a very steep poll tax. If these poll-tax-lines and other barriers to voting are correlated with racial, socio-economic, or partisan status, they are discriminatory. It doesn't matter why the lines occurred. Only the findings of unacceptable barriers, disparately applied, matter. The results of a discriminatory election are unacceptable. Period. Assertions that "we'll fix it next time" are not acceptable.

Those who claim that a large margin of victory renders such violations moot are complicit with the perpetrators.

If you accept the notion that a large margin of victory puts the election "outside the zone of litigation," then you accept the notion that such a state is completely free to discriminate with no risk of consequence. This is an absurd position. No matter what the margin of victory, the results of a discriminatory election are unacceptable. We cannot continue to tolerate the intolerable. We cannot continue to tolerate the toleration of the intolerable.

http://thedeanpeople.org

http://www.january6th.org//restoring_sanity_point-by-point.html

[Time for change]

33. You are absolutely right about that.

Discriminatory allocations of voting machines are not acceptabe, and those who engage in that kind of practice for political gain ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of the closeness of the election.

However, aggressive enforcement of equal voting machine allocation alone is not, I am afraid, ever going to allow the Democrats to take back the Presidency or Congress. Not as long as the Republicans are allowed to run elections with secretly programmed machines.

[pat_k]

45. Certainly. Secret vote counting is intolerable . . .

Certainly. Secret vote counting is intolerable in any nation that claims to conduct free and fair elections.

Nevertheless, it is important to really "get" the fact that discriminatory treatment of voters ALONE is sufficient to invalidate an election.

It is critical that we "keep it simple." When we get caught up in details of a specific election -- details intended to prove the election invalid -- we buy into the illogical assumption that the burden of proof is on us. It is not. The burden is logically on the state. See Burden of Proof in an Election.

We have the right to have confidence in the results of our elections. We are the sovereigns here, but to exercise that sovereignty we must reject the wrong-headed assumptions that are keeping us suck in a quagmire. Detailed evidence has its place, but for most situations, it is far more effective to be clear on a few simple truths and moral principles than to present detailed evidence.

Put things in stark terms with the question:

Are hours-long poll-tax-lines for poor, minority voters AND none for affluent, white voters a tolerable condition for you?

Take a stand:

Secret Vote Counting is Intolerable.

It is not up to us to prove the results to be incorrect, it is up to the state to prove them to be correct and lawfully obtained.

We have a right to have confidence in our elections. The state has the burden of running elections that instill that confidence.

This isn't about the democrats winning elections. It is about We the People demanding our right to have confidence in our elections.

--------------
BTW. If your state has an Open Meeting law, do whatever you can to get a lawsuit off the ground that is akin to Lehto and Wells v. Sequoia and Snohomish County.

People across the political spectrum believe secret vote counting is Un-American. Unfortunately, they do not understand – yet -- that the tabulation of votes on DREs constitutes secret vote counting. We must change that. "Paper trail" or "auditable" are not the memes we need. Secret Vote Counting is the phrase that should be on everyone's lips.

Not only is secret vote counting Un-American, a strong case can be made that it is Unlawful.

From http://www.njstatelib.org/LDB/Library_Law/lwopnmtg.php
The Legislature finds and declares that the right of the public to be present at all meetings of public bodies, and to witness in full detail all phases of the deliberation, policy formulation, and decision making of public bodies, is vital to the enhancement and proper functioning of the democratic process; that secrecy in public affairs undermines the faith of the public in government and the public's effectiveness in fulfilling its role in a democratic society...

From Guide to the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act:
Public body” means a commission, authority, board, council, committee or any other group of two or more persons organized under the laws of this state, and collectively empowered as a voting body to perform a public governmental function affecting the rights, duties, obligations, privileges, benefits, or other legal relations of any person, or collective authorized to spend public funds including the legislature …

The electorate is the ultimate public body. Our elections are a fundamental decision making processes. Although the question has not yet been litigated, it can certainly be argued that under the open meetings acts in most states, the process by which an accurate count of our ballots is obtained must be an open process that the average citizen can witness, understand, and have confidence in.

DREs clearly do not meet these requirements.

[Nothing Without Hope]

48. Exactly. Nothing matters if the GOP are allowed to keep their

electronic election fraud setup in place. Giving out more machines where people have noticed the racist withholding of them is something they'll probably go along with - with great self-serving fanfare - as long as they are assured that those machines and the central tabulators are totally in their hands and can be "fixed" to continue stealing elections. I suspect all those voter suppression tactics were back-ups in case the electronic fraud didn't work - but it DID work all too well. So the GOP can now afford to give ground on the visible, easily provable tactics and use the act of giving out more machines as a photo op to show their "honesty" and "concern for fair voting for all."

The DNC report is a coverup of electronic voting fraud, and I believe this is deliberate.

[Nothing Without Hope]

39. kick for an important thread n/t

[foo_bar]

40. great summary!

One suggestion re: the last paragraph. It works as an open letter, but Dean can't really distance himself from his own report. If it were strictly for Dean's consumption, I'd end with something like "every dollar the DNC spends on reform in 2005 is worth ten dollars in voter outreach in 2012. In the words of a great American patriot, Ben Franklin: 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'" You get the idea.

[Time for change]

41. Thanks for the suggestion foo_bar. Do you really think that

Dean can't distance himself from it just because he's released it? I was thinking that he can distance himself from it gradually by making statements as to evidence for fraud coming to light, etc. Granted, it's very difficult to distance yourself from something after you've already embraced it publicly. But I think that it's so crucial that he do just that. And maybe if enough people complain he'll feel forced to do that.

[foo_bar]

42. it depends what you want to accomplish

As a petition it's brilliant, makes you want to run outside and sign something. As a letter to Dean, the intended audience might tune out after "a fine, if not a great President." Kind of rubs salt in his wounds, parses his finesse from his greatness. Maybe he'd read it anyway, but he's probably accustomed to the adoring rockstar template.

[Time for change]

43. What I want to accomplish may be too much to hope for

I hope that my letter, in concert with other similar letters, will help to change the way that he looks at this situation. I believe that he's a good and a reasonable guy. I really believe what I said about him being a fine, if not a great President. He strikes me as someone who's willing to listen and change his mind if appropriate.

You may be right, I don't know. I'd be interested in what other people think about this.

[Nothing Without Hope]

44. There are now TWO Fitrakis articles on the DNC Ohio report:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380494
Thead title: The DNC 2004 Election Report: An indictment of incompetence - Bob Fitrakis?posted by tommcintyre 2004 ERD forum Sat Jun-25-05 07:41 AM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x381320
Thread title: "Limp election theft report, Dems prove why they're unworthy" – Fitrakis
posted by tommcintyre 2004 ERD forum Tue Jun-28-05 11:00 PM

[dchill]

46. That about covers it ... great letter.

kick for TFC

[Nothing Without Hope]

49. kick n/t

[Time for change]

50. Here is my letter to the researchers who wrote part VI and VII

Part VI is the part that comes to the conclusion that there was no widespread fraud. The purpose of my letter is to challenge them to explain how they reached that conclusion. Here it is:

Dear Professor Mebane:

My name is Dale Tavris, and I am an epidemiologist who works for the FDA. As someone who is very concerned about the way that elections are run in this country I feel a great need to better understand issues relating to the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. Therefore, I am very interested in your report, and I would appreciate it if you could answer a few questions about your report for me. Here are my questions:

1. You note an increase in turnout of from one half to 2% associated with voting “yes” to Issue 1. I do not see mention in your report that this analysis was controlled for party affiliation.

Do you think that it is possible or likely that in this analysis voting yes to Issue 1 served as a proxy for being a Republican, so that most of the association is due to party affiliation, rather than specifically to Issue 1?


2. As you are aware, “low voter turnout” could be due to any of the following or more: a) actual low voter turnout; b) voter suppression, such as might occur from insufficient machine allocation, leading to long voting lines, and potential voters leaving the polling place before voting, or; c) electronic manipulation, resulting in discarded ballots.

Do you think that it is possible or likely that the relatively “low voter turnout” associated with not voting yes to Issue 1 could be due to reason “b” or “c” above, especially relating to Democratic voters?


3. One thing that seems striking to me (but not surprising) is the fact that increases in voter registration were associated with both increases in voter turnout and with gains for Kerry. This is not surprising to me, given the huge interest in this election, as well as the tremendous increases in Democratic voter registration in Ohio in the months leading up to the election. This would all suggest to me that Democratic turnout would be quite high, relative to Republican turnout. Yet, your findings regarding Issue 1 suggest exactly the opposite.

Given these apparently contradictory findings, do you think that it is possible or likely that actual Democratic turnout may have been substantially increased, but due to reasons “b” or “c” above (question # 2), the calculated relative Democratic turnout (compared to Republican turnout, that is) was decreased, as indicated in your analysis of the relationship between Issue 1 and turnout?


4. You note in your summary that insufficient allocation of voting machines was associated with “low voter turnout”, for the reasons mentioned above. Numerous reports indicate that insufficient allocation of voting machines, leading to long lines and “reduced voter turnout” occurred predominantly in precincts characterized by high percentages of minority and Democratic voters. This was most famously mentioned in John Conyers’ U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff Report http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml .

Another example is a study that looked at voting machine allocation per voter by precinct partisanship http://copperas.com/machinery/ and showed that machine allocation was far less adequate in precincts that voted for Kerry. In fact, it appears from looking at the scatterplot that there were about 30 Kerry precincts where there was less than one machine per 440 registered voters, while there were no Bush precincts in this category. This same study showed that “voter turnout” decreased substantially in Franklin County as machine allocation decreased. And an extensive analysis by Elizabeth Liddle came to a similar conclusion http://uscountvotes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Item id=63. This is consistent with the DNC report analysis for all of Ohio.

Given all this, do you think that this makes the scenario that I postulated in question # 3, above, more likely?


5. On page 3 of Section IV of the DNC report, there is a discussion about how, in general, voter turnout is strongly related to the ratio of machines per voter. This is an important point and it makes sense because, as pointed out later in the DNC report, insufficient numbers of machines per voter can result in reduced voter turnout because of voters leaving the voting lines when they are unable to wait several hours to vote. However, in Cuyahoga County this normal relationship inexplicably, as you note on page 8 of Section VI of the DNC report.

Richard Hayes Phillips, a statistical expert in identifying statistical anomalies, has stated that there are at least 30 precincts in Cleveland with inexplicably low voter turnout, ranging as low as 7.1%. He then goes on to calculate that a 60% turnout in heavily Democratic Cleveland would have resulted in 22,000 additional votes for Kerry (This analysis is based not only on the apparently “low voter turnout” in
Cleveland, but also on inexplicably high vote totals for 3rd partly candidates that are apparently related to a “butterfly ballot”-like phenomenon.) http://blog.democrats.com/node/812

Do you think that this finding makes reason “c” in my question # 2 more likely, as well as the scenario that I postulate in my question # 3, above?


6. You note in your summary that the strong correlation between voting for Kerry and voting for the Democratic candidate for Governor in 2002 provides “strong evidence against the claim that widespread fraud misallocated votes from Kerry to Bush.” I don’t understand that claim. Misallocation of votes from Kerry to Bush of just over 1% of the total votes cast would have swung the election from Kerry to Bush, even in the absence of all the voter suppression noted above.

Do you think that a misallocation of votes from Kerry to Bush of a little over 1%
would have necessarily erased the strong correlation between Kerry’s 2004 vote and Hagan’s 2002 vote so much that it would no longer have been evident?


7. You also note that Kerry’s vote correlated strongly with the vote for the 2004 Democratic Senatorial candidate (Fingerhut), percent African-Americans in a precinct, and lack of support for Issue 1 (And you note, however, that there were seven counties where this relationship was not evident.) Yet, when you make the claim for the strong evidence against widespread fraud, noted above, you base that on correlations between the 2004 Kerry vote and the 2002 Hagan vote.

Why do you make that claim based on the correlation between the 2004 Kerry vote and the 2002 Hagan vote, rather than the correlation between the 2004 Kerry
vote and the 2004 Senatorial vote, the 2004 percent of African-Americans, and the 2004 vote on Issue 1?


8. Evidence has been presented elsewhere that suggests to some that widespread electronic tampering with the vote may in fact have occurred. I have included some details of this in the attached appendix. Very briefly, this includes the following:
a. A polling place in Gahanna, where Bush polled 4,258 votes, despite there being only 4,258 registered voters.
b. 19,000 votes added to Miami Co. total after 100% of precincts reported, giving Bush an extra margin of 6,000 votes.
c. Vote switching from Kerry to Bush on at least 25 touch screens in Mahoning County
d. Net gain for Bush in three southwestern counties of 37,000 compared to the 2000 election, accompanied by several apparent anomalies, including Kerry running well behind other Democratic candidates compared to other areas of the state, unexpectedly high new voter registration, and the infamous “lockdown” in Warren County, excused by non-existent threats.

I have four related questions regarding this evidence:
a. Do you think that this evidence suggests the possibility or likelihood of fraud, and is worthy of investigation?
b. Is it possible or likely that if one or more of these episodes do in fact represent fraud, that the fraud was perpetrated through manipulation of central tabulators, and therefore was not necessarily manifested by wide variance in precinct data?
c. If the answer to “b”, above, is yes, is it possible or likely that your
analysis failed to identify these issues?
d. If the answer to “c”, above, is yes, is it possible or likely that other similar episodes of fraud occurred that your analysis did not identify?


I realize that these are very difficult questions and that it is possible that you might find my asking of these questions to be confrontational. I do not mean to seem that way. And I would not have the nerve to ask such questions were it not for the fact that I believe this to be an issue of paramount national importance.

Thank you very much for your consideration of these issues.


Sincerely,


Tim F. Chang

If we are very lucky, answers to these questions will help us to better understand some of this.

[LightningFlash]

51. TFC, please give me all their email addresses.

I'm writing a hugely long scathing email, in the hopes that they do their damn jobs!!!! And take the evidence that Conyers and company have compiled including us, to REFUTE the bogus whitewash scenarios released by the Department of Justice!!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Time for change]

52. Whose e-mail address did you want? n/t

[LightningFlash]

53. Address for all those scientists who wrote the vote turnout investigation.

:kick:

[Time for change]

54. Professor Walter Mebane is the head of the group that wrote Sec. VI

That is the section of the report that comes to the conclusion that the analysis strongly suggests that there was no widespread fraud.

His e-mail address is [e-mail].

However, I have to say that it would be a VERY bad idea to write him a nasty letter. Write nasty letters to the politicians if you want. But the adademics who write these reports are under no obligation to respond to us. If they start to get nasty letters, that might cause them to refuse to correspond with those scientists who are trying to understand this whole thing better. I am trying to get information from him that will shed more light on this, with the hope that we can eventually come up with a better plan for dealing with this.

[LightningFlash]

55. Thanks, I think that clears up alot of the criticizm....

Now we need to deliver the full report to them, either personally or by direct mail. We should include all the components which are neccesary including the USCV analysis and the News of Ohio democratic party being broken into, because this is a clear crime in progress. It demands full investigating.

[O.M.B.inOhio]

56. KKKKKIIIIICCCCCCKKKKKK!

[Time for change]

57. Some responses to my questions about the DNC report

I recently received a response from Professor Walter Mebane to my questions about his group’s portions of the DNC 2004 Ohio Election Report. Professor Mebane’s group is responsible for Sections VI and VII of the DNC report. I consider Section VI to be the most critical section of the report, because that is the section that concludes that the analysis strongly suggests that there was no widespread fraud in the Ohio 2004 Presidential election.

My intention is to go over the response to my questions with some statisticians prior to posting a summary of the response on the DU. That is because I am unable to fully understand some key parts of the response. However, in the meantime, I think that it is worth while to post some key points of the response because I know that a lot of you are writing letters to our representatives or to the DNC, and I think that some parts of Professor Mebane’s response may be helpful to that effort.

Before listing those points I just want to say a general word about Professor Mebane’s response. He responded to my e-mail to him within four hours, and the response is extremely detailed and thorough – though quite difficult to read for non-statisticians. In that regard, and because some of his points I believe could be useful our effort, I think that many of you would feel some gratitude towards him for his prompt and thorough response. On the other hand, he still sticks by his conclusion that “The precinct data
provide strong evidence against the claim that there was widespread misallocation of votes from Kerry to Bush.” In that respect I’m sure that many of you would be profoundly disappointed in him, to say the least.

I myself am still unable to understand the rationale for coming to that conclusion, and that is one reason why I want to go over the response with some statisticians. Anyhow, here are the points that you might find useful:


1. Relationship of Issue 1 (ban on gay marriage) to turnout

One very perplexing (to me) part of his report was that there was a positive correlation between turnout and voting “yes” on Issue 1, which is responsible for an increase in turnout of one half percent to 2%. That was perplexing to me because we have always been told that a large turnout favors Democrats, but if voting “yes” on Issue 1 led to increased turnout, then that would appear to mean that increased turnout favored Bush.

So I asked if the reason for the apparent correlation between turnout and voting “yes” on Issue1 could be due to voter suppression or electronic manipulation to reduce the vote in Democratic precincts, since this would make it appear as if there was low turnout in Democratic precincts.

The response I received to this question was basically that it was impossible to tell because there was no data available on party affiliation, and with regard to the possibility that electronic fraud played a role in this, there was no evidence found for this “but the kind of data we have are not really suitable to digging into that. A forensic examination of administrative records would be needed to make the case for or against.”


2. Voter suppression due to insufficient voting machine allocation in Franklin County

Item # 3 in my original post to this thread discusses the problem of voter suppression due to insufficient voting machine allocation in Franklin County. I asked Professor Mebane about that, and whether that could be part of the reason for the apparent “low voter turnout” in Democratic precincts.

He did confirm the problem in Franklin County by saying that: "There were also proportionally fewer voting machines in Franklin County's minority neighborhoods than in predominantly white neighborhoods." I don’t believe he specifically addressed the issue of whether that could have contributed to the apparent low voter turnout in Democratic precincts. But I don’t see any way that it could NOT have contributed to that. I mean, it seems to me that that’s just common sense.


3. Strange findings in Cuyahoga County

I asked about some of the strange findings in Cuyahoga County, which I describe in detail in item # 2 my original post to this thread. Briefly, this includes implausibly low voter turnout in numerous precincts, coupled with the strange finding noted in the DNC report that in Cuyahoga County the normal expected positive correlation between voter turnout and machines per voter was ABSENT.

Here’s what Professor Mebane had to say about that: “I don't know what went on in Cuyahoga County. As I wrote in several places in the DNC report, there were many anomalies in the data from Cuyahoga County that warrant further investigation.”


4. Late vote surge in Miami County

I also detailed in this thread, item # 5, the late vote surge of 19,000 votes in Miami County, after 100 % of precincts had reported, giving Bush an additional cushion of about 6,000 votes.

In response to my pointing that out, Professor Mebane noted that there were four precincts in Ohio that were outliers with respect to turnout, as predicted by support for Issue 1. Three of those precincts were in Miami County, two high outliers and one low outlier.


5. Other anomalies

I also pointed out other anomalies and suspicious findings, including electronic vote switching from Kerry to Bush in Mahoning County, and several anomalies in southwestern Ohio, including a swing of 37,000 votes to Bush (compared to his 2000 vote) from the three large counties in southwestern Ohio (Warren, Butler, and Clermont), unexpectedly poor performance of Kerry compared to the relatively unknown liberal Democratic candidate for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, the infamous “lockdown” in Warren County to prevent anyone other than Republicans from observing the vote count, and the tremendously high increase in voter registration in these counties, despite the fact that the DNC report finds that this was supposed to be associated with Democratic gains. These are all detailed in item #s 4 and 6 this thread.

Professor Mebane’s response to all this was: “The problems you review for Mahoning and the other counties you mentioned seem to me to call for investigation, regardless of what is in the precinct data we analyzed.


6. Possible problems with central tabulators

I asked Professor Mebane if it is possible or likely that if one or more of these episodes (i.e., the several findings that I describe above) do in fact represent fraud, that the fraud was perpetrated through manipulation of central tabulators, and therefore was not necessarily manifested by wide variance in precinct data?

His answer to that was: “The mysteries of central tabulation are important to understand and eliminate. Section VII and especially Section VIII of the DNC report address this. The DNC team did not have access either to the tabulation hardware or software or to the original ballots (where paper ballots were used).”


Well, that’s all I have for now. Not as much as we would like by any means, but I hope that there are at least some useful points here. Some of Professor Mebane's responses that I've summarized here were already included in the DNC report, but they weren't included in the Executive Summary, which is what most people read.