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Votergate 2004; We Don't
Need Paper to Prove Fraud, But We Do Need Money and Leadership, NOW.
BY SHELDON DROBNY
Since last Tuesday there has been a justifiable uproar about the major
differences between the exit polls in Ohio and Florida and the actual results.
Democrats and Republicans, who both saw the same exit polls that showed an
electoral landslide in favor of Kerry, have confirmed this. Investigative
reporter Bob Parry confirmed from his sources that the Bush campaign was
convinced they were going to lose. George H. W. Bush also confirmed this in an
interview with The Today Show. So why have the exit polls been so wrong in the
last two elections? It is clear that there must have been manipulation in the
voting machines.
While there's been a lot of talk of problems with not having paper trails,
computer fraud is uncovered most of the time without paper trails.
As a former C.P.A and auditor, I have used statistical sampling throughout my
career with great confidence. With electronic record keeping, it's easy to
create a program to falsify the books. But there are ways to uncover that.
Auditors have developed statistical ways to cut right through corruption in
companies. You don't even need a paper trail. These statistical approaches can
be used with almost 100% accuracy to uncover fraud.
With the votergate 2004 it's a numbers game just like it is with corporate
accounting, even easier. All you're talking about is one number-- total votes
for each candidate.
There's a huge difference between polling what WILL happen and polling something
that has already happened. The reliability of polling something that has already
happened is highly reliable vs. predictive polls, like Gallup or Zogby, which is
very risky. The reliability can be, not plus or minus 4 percent as we see with
predictive poplls, but rather a much more reliable plus or minus one half or one
tenth of one percent with exit polls, because those are based on asking people
who already voted. I would even say that if the exit polling were done in the
key precincts of Florida and Ohio, which it was, then these results should be
practically “bullet proof.”
It is important that people know how accurate random sampling of historical
events can be in order for them to understand how unlikely it is that the exit
polls were wrong. So if you want to fight the battle correctly, you must get
more statisticians and forensic accountants involved as well as the lawyers.
These statisticians can show with great credibility the probability of
manipulation within the computer programs used for counting the ballots. They do
this kind of work all the time to uncover fraud based upon computer manipulation
in commercial and corporate activities. And these types of expert analyses are
admissible in a court of law.
The problem with all of this is determining who is going to fund such an
investigation. Where will the money come from?
Perhaps the Kerry/Edwards campaign fund has some surplus that can be used. It is
possible that the DNC has some excess funds. How about the 527s and PACs who
spent millions on ineffective political ads, coming up with a few million? In
addition, who is going to lead the process of getting this done? This kind of an
effort requires solidarity along with an organized coordinated effort. It's easy
to come up with the forensic and technical people to get this done, but we need
a strong leader and solidarity. Leadership and funding-- these are the two real
challenges that must be dealt with in the coming days.
We have a Watergate story here that could give the media a post election
explosive news story that could make the 2000 Florida vote debacle look like
small potatoes. We need to get the media to see that votergate 2004 is huge news
and we need to quickly fund the investigation and get Democratic leaders behind
it.
Sheldon Drobny is CPA and Venture Capitalist and co-founder of Air America
Radio; email at sdrobny@paradigmventure.com
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Election Fraud
- How You Can Help and What You Can Do
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
From Susan Truitt, Co-founder, CASE Ohio, Citizens' Alliance for Secure
Elections
Thank you all for your supportive responses to the allegations of election fraud
in the 2004 presidential election.
Here are some concrete actions that you can take that will make a difference.
Please keep your indignation alive and use that energy to raise the issue
publicly until the mass media can use the "F" word - fraud.
Please keep the energy going to help educate the public regarding the
devastating truth that our electoral process is broken and is being taken over
by right wing zealots and privatization.
Send financial donations to: www.blackboxvoting.org
, Bev Harris' site. She is
doing a world of good with her tenacious and brave work. She sent out Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requests to every county in the country, and that type of
effort requires funds. Read Black Box Voting, by Bev Harris, available on the
web, to arm yourself with the sad facts of a broken electoral process.
Also, send donations to www.eff.org
. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been
instrumental in all litigation across the country relating to e-voting
(electronic voting).
Send donations to www.verifiedvoting.org
and www.votersunite.org
and www.ballotintegrity.org
. These organizations have done a lion's share of getting
the word out about what is wrong in this country's electoral process.
Contact www.TrueMajority.org
and www.moveon.org and
www.commoncause.org
and
tell them to help pursue a post-election challenge to the vote tallies. Donate
money to these organizations.
Write to your local newspapers to inform the public at large what is going on.
Tell them to cover the election debacle and tell them to use the "F"
word liberally.
FAX Ralph Nader, 202-265-0092, and tell him to file for recounts and
reexaminations of the tally in the states in which he was on the ballot.
Write to John Conyers (D - Mich), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary
Committee on the Constitution, who has requested a Congressional Hearing on the
2004 election. Tell him you support the request and that you want him to push
for the hearing to be held as soon as possible.
Contact Information for John Conyers:
Washington DC E-Mail Address:
john.conyers@mail.house.gov
Washington DC Web Address:
http://www.house.gov/conyers/
Washington DC Web Mail Address:
http://www.house.gov/conyers/letstalk.htm
Washington DC Web Mail Address:
http://www.house.gov/writerep
Washington DC Address
2426 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-2214
Phone: 202-225-5126
Fax: 202-225-0072
District Address - Detroit
Federal Building, Room 669
231 West Lafayette Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48226-2766
Phone: 313-961-5670
Fax: 313-226-2085
District Address - Southgate
DCC Building
15100 Northline Road, Suite 257
Southgate, MI 48195
Phone: 734-285-5624
Fax: 734-285-5943
Campaign Address
19512 Livernoise
Detroit, MI 48221
Phone: 313-864-3671
Write to George Soros and ask him to help fund litigation in Ohio and Florida to
challenge the vote tallies.
c/o Open Society Institute--New York
888 7th Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10106
United States of America
Telephone: +1-212-757-2323
Fax: +1-212-974-0367
E-mail: osnews@sorosny.org
Web: http://www.soros.org/gsbio.html
Write to the DNC and ask why Senator Kerry capitulated so quickly - before the
information on the vote tallies was even beginning to come in. Tell them that
Senator Kerry needs to take back his concession. Democratic National Committee,
430 South Capitol St SE, Washington, DC 20003. Their phone number is
202-863-8000. Their web-site is: www.democrats.org
.
Contact the Kerry campaign and tell them that he has done a great disservice to
the American people by capitulating so quickly - before information could be
gathered. Tell him to reconsider in light of all that is coming to the surface.
Contact National Headquarters
Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc.
P.O. Box 34640
Washington, DC 20043
202-712-3000
202-712-3001 (fax)
202-336-6950 (TTY)
Stay in touch with CASE_OH@yahoogroups.com and www.caseohio.org
.
Finally, forward this to all of you friends, acquaintances, listservs, etc.
CASE Ohio is helping organize a public hearing this week regarding this year's
election. It will be in Columbus, Ohio at a time a place TBD. Please consider
attending. More information later.
Keep up the good fight.
Thank you.
Susan
Susan Truitt
Co-founder, CASE Ohio, Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections
www.caseohio.org
614-487-1759
614-270-5239
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
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Unless otherwise noted, all original content and headlines are © BuzzFlash.
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Election
problems due to a software glitch
November 05, 2004
Sue Book
Sun Journal
A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is
being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at
least one race in Tuesday's election.
Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of
votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a
human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.
The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early
voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being
entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.
The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information
from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added,
the precinct totals were added a second time. Precincts affected were Havelock
East, Havelock West, River Bend, Cove City, Ernul, Fort Totten, Grover C.
Fields, Glenburnie and West New Bern.
An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that
already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function
correctly, Miller said.
"I have redone every (personal electronic ballot) completely and am adding
the absentees," she said early Thursday. "Every precinct was
redone."
The second set of incorrect numbers came when the total for one of the batches
of absentee ballots was not included in the first manual recount.
"That's why we have a week before the votes are official, so if we do find
problems we can get them straight before the votes are certified," said
Miller, who was in her office before 8 a.m. Thursday, hand-crunching the numbers
retrieved from the voting machines.
New numbers put incumbent Commissioner Leon Staton in front of Republican
challenger Tony Michalek for the Craven County Board of Commissioners District 5
seat. It does not appear that any other local races will be affected as a result
of the malfunction, even with the results of about 1,000 provisional votes still
to be entered Nov. 9.
Joined by her staff when the Craven County Administration Building opened,
Miller already had been discussing the problem and remedies with Craven County
Board of Elections Chairman Gloria Stanley, Electronic Systems and Software
local representative Owen Andrews and North Carolina State Board of Elections
Director Gary Bartlett.
Other than the cranking sound of numbers adding and an occasional ring of the
phone, the office was dead quiet as they scrutinized the emerging tapes and
hand-posted them on notebooks to be added by hand.
Craven County Commissioner Renee Sisk, a Republican who would be in the new
majority on the board with Michalek's election, came by to assess the situation,
followed by Craven County Manager Harold Blizzard, then Craven County Republican
Party Chairman Steve Tyson, who both came in to inquire about the problem and
possible solution. Then a national Republican political consultant who had
watched the returns and had some concern that other precincts were involved in
the problem entered the office.
Andrews arrived and made contact with the ESS home office in Omaha, Neb.
"What she is dong now is the failsafe way to make sure we get it
right," said Andrews, of Owen G. Dunn in New Bern.
"When a voter casts the vote, it stays in the memory of the machine, which
has redundancy as a safeguard," he said.
While there is no paper ballot, Andrews said "(Miller) has a paper trail.
She can print as many paper vote tallies out of the machine as she'd like."
That information remains in the voting machine until the election is decided and
it is deliberately removed.
Andrews will work with the manufacturer, Miller and the elections board to
correct the problem to ensure it will not happen again, but said "it really
has nothing to do with the integrity of the vote as cast or counted."
"We will produce an honest outcome by the time we canvass Tuesday,"
said Craven County Board of Elections member Walter Leake, who was one of the
last to stop by the elections office Thursday. "The poll books will match
the machine."
Election difficulties also were reported in a number of other North Carolina
counties, including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably
lost.
Sue Book can be reached at (252) 638-8101 ext. 262 or sue_book@link.freedom.com.
© 2004 by Freedom ENC Communications. All rights reserved. Content may not be
reproduced without written permission from FENC Communications. For questions or
comments about this site please email webmaster@enctoday.com
.
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Computer glitch still
baffles county clerk
By Kristin Miller, The News-Dispatch
LaPORTE - The day after a two-and-a-half-hour delay in counting ballots due to a
glitch in a computer program, LaPorte County election officials are still trying
to figure out what happened.
"Maybe there was a power surge," LaPorte County Clerk Lynne Spevak
said. "Something zapped it."
At about 7 p.m. Tuesday, it was noticed that the first two or three printouts
from individual precinct reports all listed an identical number of voters. Each
precinct was listed as having 300 registered voters.
That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although
there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters.
Vote counting resumed at about 9:30 p.m.
Spevak said workers at the clerk's office thought a computer correction could be
done once they received a software patch from Election Systems and Software, the
Chicago company that provided the tabulation software. However, the patch did
not work.
"We thought we could get a copy of it e-mailed file to us and start all
over, but once the program was downloaded from Chicago, it still didn't work
right," Spevak said.
Spevak said the Board of Election was in contact with Indianapolis to see if
they could certify the vote. She said Wednesday that LaPorte County election
officials might have to manually input the information so that the ballots could
be certified with the state.
Contact reporter Kristin Miller at kmiller@thenewsdispatch.com
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Most provisional ballots rejected; voters
often in wrong precinct
By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
The vast majority of provisional ballots — voters' last chance to have their
voices heard — were rejected, a review of the presidential election results
from across the state found.
While most elections officials on Tuesday were still analyzing the reasons
thousands of ballots ended up in the waste bin, they said the majority of
rejected ballots were cast by people who simply were not registered to vote.
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Other reasons ballots ended up in the trash: voting in the wrong precinct,
signatures that didn't match those on file at the elections office and lapsed
registrations because voters hadn't responded to address-verification requests
and hadn't voted in at least four years.
Those who unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to give voters greater flexibility in
casting provisional ballots said the high number of rejections signals a need to
change Florida law.
Unlike 17 other states, Florida doesn't allow people to cast provisional ballots
anywhere in their home county. To be counted, the ballot has to be cast at the
polling place for the person's assigned precinct.
Palm Beach County Judge Barry Cohen, who chairs the county's elections
canvassing board, said it pained him to reject ballots that were cast in the
wrong precinct.
"I was not happy with rejecting the ballots of those people who went to all
the trouble to register, went to the polls and went through all the other hoopla
and then, because they voted in precinct 1028 instead of 1064, their vote didn't
count," he said.
"The law is clear, but the law is not right," he said.
Florida Sen. Ron Klein agreed. The Delray Beach Democrat said changing the
requirement is one of several election reforms he will suggest in the upcoming
legislative session.
"We're in a computer age. You should be able to vote in any precinct,"
he said. "We're acting like we're in the dark ages because we can't
overcome technology issues. To me this is elementary computer technology. These
things can easily be fixed."
Provisional ballots were created in the wake of the 2000 presidential debacle
when allegations were made that tens of thousands of people nationwide were
unfairly denied the right to vote because of inaccurate records at the polls.
By casting a provisional ballot, people can preserve their vote until their
eligibility is determined.
Had provisional ballots existed in the 2000 election, Cohen said, they could
have well made the difference between victory and defeat for Al Gore, who lost
his shot at the Oval Office by 537 votes.
Though upset by the number of ballots that were thrown out, Cohen said he and
fellow canvassing board members did everything they could to make sure every
vote counted.
Knowing that summaries of court records are notoriously inaccurate, Cohen
refused to reject a ballot without proof that a person was a felon. Fellow
canvassing board members, County Commission Chairwoman Karen Marcus and
Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore supported his view.
Cohen asked the clerk of courts to give the canvassing board orders signed by a
judge for voters whose ballots were going to be rejected because they were
felons.
In at least a half-dozen cases, Cohen said, the board discovered that the person
had been convicted of a misdemeanor or adjudication had been withheld, so the
person wasn't technically convicted of a felony. About the same number were
rejected because it turned out the voter had been convicted of a felony.
Though disheartened that he had to reject more than half of the provisional
ballots that were cast, he said there is good news hidden in the seemingly
lopsided figures.
"If it wasn't for the provisional ballots, more than 1,000 people wouldn't
have been allowed to vote," he said. "Even if we wind up rejecting the
vast majority, we stop a lot of people from being disenfranchised." Cohen
said he was also struck by the passion that brought people to the polls.
In more than one ballot, people wrote such entreaties as, "Please let my
vote count."
However, in many cases, the canvassing board simply couldn't.
Alma Gonzalez, a Tallahassee attorney who represented unions in their
unsuccessful legal fight to drop the precinct-only requirement, said voter
protection groups are going to analyze the election results closely to see why
so many ballots were rejected.
"We're going to look at the lessons that were learned and what obstacles
remain," she said. "This issue is not going to go away."
Find this article at:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/...ional_1110.html
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Cuyahoga board
deflates vote suspicions
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Scott Hiaasen
Plain Dealer Reporter
A confusing counting method employed by Cuyahoga County elections officials
appears to inflate the vote totals in some suburbs, further fueling suspicion on
the Internet about the integrity of Ohio's unofficial election results.
To a casual observer, Cuyahoga County seemed to have more votes than voters in
some areas on Election Day - a 90,000-vote disparity being hyped in cyberspace
under headlines such as "Stolen Election" and "Ohio Fraud."
The problem stems from an election canvassing report posted on the county's Web
site, where the number of "ballots cast" in several suburbs exceeds
the number of registered voters.
For example, the documents suggest that 13,939 ballots were cast in Beachwood,
though only 9,943 voters are registered there.
But county officials say that's not how the data should be read. The
"ballots cast" is not a reflection of the votes within a city's
borders; the numbers also include votes in the congressional and legislative
districts that overlap with the cities.
A disclaimer on the elections board's Web site warns viewers not to count up
votes in a city based on the "ballots cast" column.
But that has not stopped an Internet-inspired chain-mail campaign that questions
the validity of Ohio's presidential vote, where President Bush still holds an
unofficial lead of 136,483 votes over Sen. John Kerry.
Cuyahoga officials said Tuesday they have received about 30 phone calls and a
handful of e-mails from people curious about the discrepancy. Interest appeared
to increase based on a chain of e-mails that sprouted from Texas, and a mention
of the incongruous Cuyahoga County figures that aired on the MSNBC cable network
Monday night.
"Is it a concern because we don't want it to get out of control? Yes,"
said Jane Platten, an administrator at the elections board.
Web surfers have discovered other problems in the Ohio results, most notably an
error in one Franklin County precinct that added 3,893 extra votes for Bush.
Such mistakes should be corrected in the next few weeks, as the state's boards
review and recount all of their ballots before arriving at a certified vote
total. Included in those numbers will be the verified votes that are among the
155,000 provisional ballots cast in the state, and absentee ballots cast from
overseas, which must arrive by Friday to be counted.
After the counties make their official count, the Secretary of State will then
approve an official certified state total sometime around Dec. 3.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
shiaasen@plaind.com , 216-999-4927
Copyright 2004 www.cleveland.com
. All Rights Reserved.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 10, 2004
9:46 AM
CONTACT: www.VoteNader.org
Kevin Zeese 202-265-4000
Ralph Nader Holds Press Conference in Washington, DC 1:00 PM, November 10, 2004
WASHINGTON -- November 10 -- Was Every Vote Counted Accurately? Nader/Camejo
Goes Forward with Hand Recount in New Hampshire
Washington, DC: Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader will be holding a
press conference at 1:00 in at 1616 P Street, NW, 7th Floor. The press
conference will focus on widespread reports of voting problems that raise
questions about vote counting. The United States needs to face up to serious
shortcomings in its electoral
process so that we can have trust in the results of the vote.
Nader/Camejo has requested a hand recount of the vote in New Hampshire because
of reports of anomalies favoring President Bush in towns that used the Diebold
AccuVote optical scan machines. A hand recount will either rule out the
possibility of machine error or show a discrepancy in the Diebold machine and
the actual vote-either way voters need to know. To review the request for a hand
recount in New Hampshire visit www.VoteNader.org. Similar inexplicable results
have been found in other states, including Ohio. Nader has called on John Kerry
to demand that every vote be counted accurately. His campaign has remained
strangely silent on the matter.
This election has highlighted the need for electoral reform including federal
standards for federal offices and non-partisan administration of the elections
from ballot access, through debate participation and to how the vote is cast and
counted.
###
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OHIO
In key state, rural vote swung big
GOP mobilized outside large cities to give Bush win
- Zachary Coile, Chronicle Political Writer
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Columbus, Ohio -- It was after 2 a.m. Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency, and Ohio
Republicans were cheering wildly: Fox News had called the state for President
Bush, and the crowd of party activists was ready to celebrate.
Chris McNulty, the state Republican Party's executive director, was nervous.
Three large Democratic counties had not finished reporting results, and he
feared Bush's slim lead in Ohio might shrink.
"The goose has got to be cooked before you start eating it," he warned
his staff. "We were close, but it wasn't done."
The fate of Ohio's hold-your-breath election came down to a precinct-by-
precinct battle between the two parties' get-out-the-vote operations, which were
the most sophisticated and expensive in the state's history.
But the president narrowly won this state and its 20 crucial Electoral College
votes -- which pushed him over the top nationally -- by piling up huge margins
of support in rural areas and new-growth suburbs.
Political analysts said all the efforts by the Democratic party and allied
groups to register voters and get them to the polls in Ohio's major cities were
effectively canceled out by the Republicans' strategy of increasing the turnout
of Bush's conservative base, especially religious voters.
In the end, the spread of Bush's win over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry
-- 2.5 percentage points -- was only slightly narrower than four years ago when
Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by 3.6 percentage points.
"I'd say both ground games were good. ... I wouldn't say the Republican
ground game was any better," said Dean Lacy, a political scientist at Ohio
State University. "If you had the turnout drop by 5 or 10 percent, I think
the outcome would have been the same, because both the president and Kerry were
just pulling more of their own voters -- but not swing voters."
Early Tuesday, it appeared Ohio was tilting Kerry's way. Long lines at polling
places, especially in urban and heavily minority precincts, suggested a strong
turnout among traditional Democratic voters. And early exit polls showed Kerry
up by 5 points over Bush in Ohio.
But at GOP headquarters, they were receiving reports from volunteers of a huge
turnout in Republican-dominated rural counties and suburbs across the state.
"It was obviously disheartening" to see the exit poll data, McNulty
said. "But it didn't feel right. How could we be down 4 or 5 points when we
were getting 80 percent turnout in some of our precincts?"
Democrats were optimistic because of what appeared to be a huge turnout in
Franklin County, which includes Columbus, and Cuyahoga County, which includes
Cleveland, where Kerry was beating Bush by 2-1.
"If you told Republicans before last night that the Democrats would have a
216,000-vote margin in Cuyahoga County and a 35,000- to 40,000-vote margin in
Franklin County, they would have thought the election would be lost," Lacy
said.
But in the Republican stronghold of southwest Ohio -- where the GOP had spent
months registering voters -- suburban counties were seeing an equally strong
turnout. In Butler County north of Cincinnati, Bush was up by 52,000 votes --
erasing almost a quarter of the advantage Kerry had built up in Cuyahoga County.
The state's 57 rural counties were also producing unexpectedly large margins for
Bush. In Lawrence County in southeast Ohio, Republicans had predicted Bush would
win narrowly with 51 percent, but he ended up taking 56 percent of the vote.
The Kerry campaign had hoped to do better in southeast Ohio, the area of rural
Appalachia that has some of the highest unemployment rates in the state. Kerry's
running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, had made repeated visits to the
area to woo voters, but Bush carried the area by focusing on national security
and values.
"They are socially conservative voters," Lacy said. "They may not
have been as concerned about the jobs issue this year."
Nearly 70 percent of registered voters turned out in Ohio -- higher than the
63.7 percent who voted four years ago, but shy of the modern record set in 1992
when 77 percent of voters turned out.
Democrats believed a strong anti-Bush sentiment would give them an edge in
turnout. But the critiques of the president on the Iraq war and other issues
also motivated Bush's supporters to rally to his side.
"They wanted to turn out to show their support for the president,"
said Sunne Garrett, a volunteer for the "Mighty Texas Strike Force,"
which walked precincts in Ohio for Bush. "That's what people weren't
expecting."
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com
.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Countinghouse
Blues
Too Many Votes
Too many votes
Sarpy County election officials are trying to figure out how they ended up with
more votes than voters in the general election. As many as 10,000 extra votes
have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals.
Johnny Boykin lost his bid to be on the Papillion City Council. The difference
between victory and defeat in the race was 127 votes.
Boykin says, "When I went in to work the next day and saw that 3,342 people
had shown up to vote in our war, I thought something's not right."
He's right. There are not even 3,000 people registered to vote in his ward.
For some reason, some votes were counted twice.
Deputy Sarpy County Election Commissioner Ed Gilbert says, "It affected 32
of the 80 precincts. And I suppose as many as 10,000 votes."
Sarpy County borrowed the election equipment from Omaha-based Election Systems
& Software. Its employees operated the machines that are now double-checking
the ballots.
No one is sure exactly what went wrong.
Gilbert says, "The only thing we know is that if you load the disc out
there, it reads fine. They didn't read fine on this computer."
Election officials say they don't believe the glitch will impact who won and who
lost any of the races. They figure that when votes were doubled in a particular
race, the totals were doubled for both candidates. Vote totals would be skewed
but percentages would not change.
In spite of that, the candidates want to know the real numbers.
Boykin says, "I think we owe it to those folks to make sure all the votes
got counted, correctly."
As of Thursday night, the problem still had not been pinpointed. The Sarpy
County Election office had hoped to post the updated results on its Web site
but, at last check, we got the following message: "Updated unofficial
results for the 2004 General Election are pending. Please check back
later."
Find this article at:
http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/1161971.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
local6.com
Wet Ballots Found, Rejected By Voting Machines
POSTED: 2:00 PM EST November 2, 2004
UPDATED: 2:59 AM EST November 4, 2004
SANFORD, Fla. -- Several hundred ballots in Seminole County, Fla., mysteriously
got wet and were rejected by voting machines Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.
wet ballot
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The wet ballots were apparently discovered unmarked Tuesday at the Community
United Methodist Church in Casselberry, Fla.
Ballots Found Wet In Seminole County
The Supervisor of Elections, Dennis Joyner, said he does not know how the
ballots became wet, Local 6 News reported. He said ballots were dry when the
boxes were shipped out of the office, according to the report.
Also, the region has not seen rain this week.
"Some of the ballots were wet when they opened them this morning,"
witness Beth Anker said. "They were a little wet from something and were
not going into the machine correctly."
Joyner told Local 6 News that anyone whose wet ballot was rejected by a voting
machine was allowed to fill in a new ballot.
Complaints of voter intimidation were also reported at the same voting precinct,
Local 6 News reported.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
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