Conally Tangent is getting pretty silly IMO

[Fescue4u]

It seems to be based on the premise that if a presidential candidate loses a state, then all other Dems must receive even fewer voters

Pretty flimsy.

Furthermore, the party affliation of SC candidates is NOT listed on the ballot. Neither is sex, nor race for that matter, as some people seem to find it incomprehensible that a black women could garner so many votes...More votes than a white male (GASP!) This smacks of racism and sexism to me, but thats another conversation.

Moyer, her opponent isnt exactly that popular of a Republican. He recently voted against a highly publized gun rights case which earned him the ire of many Republicans.

Check out this link. This organization is VERY anti-Kerry. They are pro Bush, but anti-Moyer. They are silent on Connaly though.

http://www.ofccpac.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=87

Finally here's a little anecdote. When I left the polling place I asked my wife who she voted for in SC races. She told me that "she voted for the women, because she didnt know anything about them" (sigh). Makes me wonder how other people choose in the absence of any information about the 2 candidagtes.

It just seems to be VERY counter productive, to go off on this connaly tangent, with such flimsy assertions.

[Fescue4u]

1. ...

kick

[jamboi]

20. Elec. Fraud lawyer calls it Prima Facie evidence.Does he know a thing or 2

If anyone wants to hear for themselves another Cliff Arnebeck (one of the Ohio recount lawyers) interview where he goes into the logic of this question they can go to:
http://pacifica.org/programs/election2004/20041128-HowTheOhioVoteWasRigged.html

[mostly_lurking]

2. THANK YOU!

You said exactly what I wanted to say. Because I am new and post infrequently I didn't want to post the comments as I would be immediately suspected of being a troll.

[ReneB]

3. but.

"When I left the polling place I asked my wife who she voted for in SC races. She told me that "she voted for the women, because she didnt know anything about them" (sigh)."

lets say alot of people dont know anyone of the 2 options (candidates) they vote for. wouldnt be the result then be something like 50/50? in ALL counties? what i have seen that did NOT happen

[Fescue4u]

4. If you are asserting that voters are well informed

Then I respectfully disagree.

Moyer does have a some (but not alot) of name recognition. He is also on the top of the ballot.

[ReneB]

5. from your post

voters do not seem to be well informed. (your wife for exmaple:)


also read the newest blog from keith olbermann please

[CementDude]

6. Good point, here is another thought..

Look at the "gay marriage" percentages in the 10 states that had it on the ballot. More people voted to ban gay marriage than voted for Bush. So you could make the argument that Bush should have received more votes in those states. But the reality is that these issues are not solely deciding factors, so, for example, while someone may feel inclined to vote a repub/dem for president, they may want the opposite in the Sentate/House.

It just depends on what issue is important to *them* at that moment. Could be terroism, gay marriage, war in Iraq, other social issues. You can't look at the two races and make that kind of assumption.

[dewaldd]

7. Not to mention that Connally got FEWER votes than Kerry

*sigh*

[truehawk]

21. Pad where it is Republican

This counties where Connally got more votes than Kerry are supposedly HEAVILY REPUBLICAN counties, exactly where one would expect them to pad the vote.

By suspicious, Jackson is referring to the latest analysis of the Nov. 2 vote by a coalition of Ohio voting rights activists. In analyzing the still-unofficial results, the totals reveal that C. Ellen Connally, an African-American Democratic candidate from Cleveland for Ohio Chief Justice.

If the counties voted in the same PROPORTION for Kerry as for Connally, Kerry received over 100,000 more votes, I still have to check the numbers.



"For example in Butler County, Connally the Democrat received 59,532 running against Republican Chief Justice Moyer who received 66,625 votes. the difference between Connally and Moyers's votes was 7093. Bush received 106,735 votes and Kerry received 54,185 votes, with a difference of 52,550.
Moyer won over Connally with 52.8% eliminating minimal third party votes, Bush won over Kerry with 66%.

Kerry is short at least 5000 votes and more like 21,751 votes in Butler County, if the county voted for Kerry in the same proportion as they voted for Connally.


"
The reason these vote counts are suspect is because Connelly, a retired African-American judge, was vastly outspent in her race, and did not have the visibility of the presidential race.

“This looks like a computer glitch or a computer fix,” said Bob Fitrakis, a lawyer, political scientist and Editor of the Columbus Free Press (http://freepres.org) who has written about election irregularities since Bush was declared the winner. Fitrakis is among the team of lawyers who announced they would soon file an election challenge in the state’s Supreme Court.

“Statistically, Kerry, as the Democratic presidential candidate, should have more votes than Connally. In a presidential election, most voters have the priority of casting a vote for president and the votes for president are almost always much higher than those of candidates farther down the ticket. When voters vote for Democratic candidates farther down the ticket, it is usually being driven by a sample ballot from the Party, starting at the top with president. Many voters simply don’t vote for Supreme Court justices. It is highly improbable that Connally’s vote totals would be so much higher than Kerry’s,” Fitrakis said.

The fact that Warren County has such odd vote counts is no surprise to Fitrakis. “The Republican-dominated county threw out all the media and independent vote watchers when votes were being counted at the end of Election Day, claiming ‘homeland security’ issues. This would have easily allowed for the wholesale shifting of a large amount of votes from Kerry to Bush. If you’re behind closed doors, it is easy enough to do. The November issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines show how easy it is to hack the vote and steal an election. The articles are called ‘E-vote emergency: And you thought dimpled chads were bad’ and ‘Could hackers tilt the election?’ I think they did,” explained Fitrakis.

There were 15 Ohio counties where Connally’s margin was 5,000 votes or more better than Kerry’s unofficial results. In five counties, Connally had a 10,000-vote margin or better. These counties used punch card, optical scan, and touch screen voting machines – with most using punch card systems.

[roseBudd]

27. If Warren County shifted Kerry votes to Bush during the infamous

Nov. 2 lockdown, did they:

A: swap prepunched Bush ballots for Kerry ballots or
B: Just hack the tally

If they just hacked the tally would they not risk being caught because the evidence (the punchcards) are still out there.

BTW TRiad Systems provided the vote tallying and dayton Legal Blank the ballots in Warren.

[righteous1]

8. All good points

I thought i was the only one that noticed that party affiliations were not attributed to SC candidates, thanks for bringing that to everones attention. We need to concentrate on bonafide verfiable proof and not get sidetracked with these half-baked theories and marginal bluster signifying nothing

[carolinalady]

9. One thing to ask about...

In NC, our judges are also not listed as Dem or Repub, however--a few days before the election we were sent a "guide to understanding the judicial nominees" in our mail which listed their party. Also at the polls I was given a bright yellow card which listed ALL the Dem candidates on the ticket including the judges. I used that when I was voting to make sure I picked the right ones. I also know that this was done in VA because my mother voted there and told me about it.

[cdp]

10. Yup.

Someone mentioned the gay marriage thing, which passed by significant margins in the blue states Oregon and Michigan. Many people vote in strange ways. One quarter of gays voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. It sounded unbelievable to me, until I found out one of my gay friends voted for Bush.

It's too bad that mostly newbies post doubts about the Connally argument. All the old timers are going to get on here and yell "freeper" at any minute.

[New Earth]

11. why doesn't everyone just chill out then

and let the lawyers handle it in Ohio? Rev. Jackson already said it is something they will be looking into. Why is everyone going so crazy about it?

[drunkdriver-in-chief]

12. I've been fighting this story too.

The numbers are kinda unusual but you're not gonna prove fraud with something like this. It's just distracing us from the better arguments.

[roseBudd]

19. I would not think much of the Connaly numbers if I had not just heard

the lawyer from CASEOhio, Cliff Arnebeck say they have evidence of vote switching from Kerry to Bush. The Warren County lockdown was mentioned several times. Immediately after Jesse Jackson talked about Connaly's vote tally in SW Ohio. This was not a populous county. Is her tally higher than 50% in Clemont, Butler and Warren?

[righteous1]

13. The throw enough crap against the wall and

something will stick mentality just isn't going to cut it

[New Earth]

15. there are so many 'suspicious' numbers and claims out there

that i think they all need to be looked into. we are not the ones out on the ground looking into them. i don't think it's fair to discredit OR credit any of them until they are actually investigated.

[jmknapp]

14. I fear Jackson has been sold a bill of goods

The whole argument is confusing, and conflates votes received with vote margins. It's hard to figure out what they are saying.

Furthermore, the argument that Connally's performance is unusual is reminiscent of the now-defunct arguments about voter registration in the Dixiecrat Florida counties. I.e., all it took was a reference to the 2000 election to debunk it.

Here is a graph summarizig the Connally situation as I undertand it. It takes Kerry's percent in each county plotted against how many percent Connally did relatively for better or worse:



So it can be seen that in the counties where Kerry got trounced, Connally indeed scored tens of percentage points higher.

But take a look at a similar graph from the Ohio 2000 election, plotting the performance of Ohio Supreme Court Justice Tim Black (Democrat) vs. Gore:



That is a very similar relationship. Jackson and the Free Press will be hard put to convince anyone that the Connally situation is amiss.

As for an explanation of the phenomenon (where the Democratic judge does better than the Democratic presidential candidate in heavily-Republican counties), here's a candidate:

Judges are not identified by party on the ballot. Most voters don't know who they are. Say for the sake of argument that voters vote for president based on well-known party affiliation, but basically flip a coin for the judge. In that case, in heavily Republican counties, the Democratic presidential candidate gets trounced, but the judge gets 50%--much better. In Democratic counties the Democratic presidential candidate does well, but the judge scores relatively poorly at 50%.

[rebelskypirate]

16. 3 types of....

What did Mark Twain say, "there are lies, dammed lies, and statistics?" something like that.....

As the last poster said, interesting stuff, but does NOT prove fraud, that will take a lot more than crunching numbers....

thanks all

[lizzieforkerry]

17. Do you live in Warren County Ohio?

[Fescue4u]

28. Butler county

Which is adjacent to Warren.

I do have a brother who lives in Warren though.

[lizzieforkerry]

29. As democrats in Warren County we received

3 Republican ballot cards so we would know which judges to vote for. On them it asked that we make copies and take them to the polls with us to give to other Republicans who may have forgotten theirs. When I voted a large number of people had these in their hands and also in the precinct where I worked that day. The Republican judges had a sign which had all three of their names on it- we did not have any with the Dem judges on it, and I didn't see any either. I think there were pretty few Warren County Republicans who didn't know which republican judges to vote for. Maybe Butler County did not have such an extensive campaign for the judges. Did your brother not know which judges were Republican? I just can't see a large number of Republicans voting for Connally. I can see Dems splitting their votes but not republicans. I am not arguing with you, I don't know what happened in Warren County. I do know that Kerry should have gotten more votes than reported.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

18. Look at the rest of the races...

SC and Senate -- all have vote totals that mirror the Kerry results. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a flaw in the vote counting that grossly over-reported Connally's results and that it shouldn't be investigated. But I don't think it will effect Kerry's outcome.

[wlubin]

22. My first thoughts when I heard this news yesterday was

how is this Conally anomally different from all of the other anomallies that have occured around the country that everyone has been pointing out? So how is this anomolly different from all other anomollies that it gets to be blessed with the title of, well whatever that title was. :)

[wlubin]

23. My first thoughts when I heard this news yesterday was

how is this Conally anomaly different from all of the other anomalies that have occurred around the country that everyone has been pointing out? So how is this anomaly different from all other anomalies that it gets to be blessed with the title of prima face i think the title was. :)

[roseBudd]

24. prima facie evidence

Evidence that is sufficient to raise a presumption of fact or to establish the fact in question unless rebutted.

A prima-facie case is a lawsuit that alleges facts adequate to prove the underlying conduct supporting the cause of action and thereby prevail.

[wlubin]

25. Ok then what about that research done at Berkley that said I think

if I remember correcly that the outcome in florida was like a 250 million to one chance, or something like most likely bush got 200,000 too many votes. Why can't that be a Prima Face (or however it is called) thing?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

30. You are forgetting something. It's all about the sample ballot !!!

Jackson said that the trend they found was that the sample ballots - distributed at churches and such, were followed to a tee EXCEPT the diversion from Kerry.

[mdb]

26. Who is Judge C. Ellen Connelly?

If I lived in Ohio does she have a website so I can make an informed decision if I choose to vote for her? How do I get some info on her campaign? I don't know who she is, just that she is retired.