Over 15,000 Votes Suppressed in Heavily Democratic Precincts, Franklin Cty

[chorti]

Please see my article: <http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1708672.php>
- Over 22,000 votes suppressed in Franklin County, Ohio, 15,000 of which were in heavily Democratic precincts.
- Heavily Democratic precincts (>80%) were 12 times more likely than the average Republican precinct to have a voting machine taken away in 2004 and to be extremely crowded November 2.
- Democratic precincts were two and a half times more likely to be extremely crowded than Republican precincts.
- Nearly one out of three (31%) Democratic precincts had less voting machines in 2004 than in 2000 compared to less than one out of six (16%) Republican precincts.
- One can estimate that a majority African-American precinct was 12 times more likely than a Republican precinct to have voting machines taken away in 2004 and end up being extremely crowded (> 260 active voters per machine).

[truehawk]

1. Take a look at this analysis

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x121922

[chorti]

2. a good one-two

Joe has done some great charts and maps, at the topic you link to as well as at . I think we are saying about the same thing but in a little different way. I was able to quantify an estimate of how many votes were likely suppressed in Franklin County due to lack of voting machines - 22,000. And that was just one of many forms of voter suppression. And it was targetting the African-American community, a clear violation of the voting rights act.

[bemis12]

3. Where did we get the info about

the number of machines in each precint? I haven't been able to locate it.

[chorti]

4. common cause

got a copy from the county's election board staff and so did Dr. Phillips, who sent it to me. I think it was from a whistle-blower, because it is pretty damning. I can send you the original pdf or the equivalent excel spreadsheet if you like - send me an email and I'll reply - tim at nedlc dot org.

[bemis12]

5. What I cannot understand is

The machines are allocated by a 4 member Board, 2 from each party. The Chariman of the Franklin County Elections Board is William Anthony.

Mr. Anthony is also the CHAIR of the Democratic Party for Franklin County, and is an African-American. For there to be intentional disenfranchisment, he'd have to be in on it, and I'm having trouble accepting that.

http://www.fcdp.org/executive.html

That's why I was wondering about the source of the machine info.

[shraby]

8. Ever hear of Zell Miller? Nuf said.

[bemis12]

9. He's no Zell Miller

Look at his page. This man is a Dem thru and thru. He's chairman of the party for God's sake.

[mod mom]

24. Could it be incompetence?

[jmknapp]

15. The machine info was entered into evidence

...by Cliff Arnebeck at the first Ohio Voter Suppression Hearing. I asked him for a copy, which he emailed some days later. In the meantime I had also emailed the Franklin County Board of Elections asking for the information. Well lo and behold, the same day that Cliff sent me his spreadsheet, a guy at the BOE sent me the exact same file. So I conclude that the BOE is the original source of that information.

Joe

[skids]

20. What I cannot understand is

"For there to be intentional disenfranchisment, he'd have to be in on it, and I'm having trouble accepting that."

...or he'd just have to be negligant and not have done his homework.

[read the law first]

22. It's like the folks who say SOS Cox (D) stole GA from Max Cleland

Cathy Cox is one of the most loyal and fiercely partisan democrats on the planet and she's constantly accused of having intentionally stolen Georgia for the pukes. It makes no sense.

ok, ya got me, Zell Miller is from Georgia too.

But she didn't steal the election from Max in order to give it to the pukes.

[bobbieinok]

29. BUT doesn't Cox argue fiercely for no-paper-trail machines???????

isn't that the DUers report from GA????

Eloriel?????

[chorti]

6. my question for conyers to ask Blackwell would be

What was his role in securing funding for new voting machines for the counties and in ensuring that each county allocated the voting machines in a fair way that upheld the Voting Rights Act? Did he offer guidelines or suggestions to counties regarding how they should allocate voting machines. What review process is in place after the election to examine access of voters to the polls? Will the State of Ohio bring charges against any county where there is evidence that the county may have violated the Voting Rights Act?

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. Franklin County's Election Board is 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans

Not only is the Chairman a Democrat, his is also the Chairman of the County Democratic party. Why would he want to suppress the vote in Democratic precincts?

[bemis12]

11. He wouldn't of course

This calls into heavy question the veracity of the data on the placement of the machines. It's from an "unnamed source." Yet it's treated as gold, because we'd like it to be true.

No way this guy allowed the misplacemnt of machines.

[LisaL]

13. Wake up!

No way this guy would have allowed misplacement of machines?
Then WTF did I have to wait in a long line in the rain to vote?
There was no lines whatsoever in 2000.

[seriousstan]

14. I worked these very polls

The problem was that people don't vote. In 1996 we had 4 machines. Hardly ever a line. About 360 voters out of 1100 registered. The next four years we never had more than 280 voters. In 2000 the primary had a slight increase in voters, about 320 voters out of 1200 registered (I think it was the McCain draw). In the Pres. race we had about 400 voters. In the next four years it was as if people forgot where the polls were. We never had over 300 people vote at any one election. Once our numbers went all the way to about 150 voters out of 1200 registered! That was 2002. THAT is when they took our fourth machine away.

Then EVERYONE gets all excited about voting and we suddenly have 1500 registered voters and about 760 of them show up!

THAT s what happened. No great mystery. Should people have seen it coming. SURE. The excuse we are getting here in Ohio is that we are getting all new machines, with paper trail, for 2006. They didn't see the justification of spending the millions it would have taken for machines that they would throw away in 2 years.

Do the math yourself. Each additional machine only reduces the wait by about an hour. People took 6-10 minutes to vote. At best we can put 20 people an hour in the booth.

[jmknapp]

17. Why did some machines have 200 active voters per machine

And others had 400 active voters per machine?

Are some active voters more equal than others?

[seriousstan]

21. Show me the voting history of the precincts you are quoting. Link?

The number of "active" voters varies like the tides. Never, has there been a turnout like this election. So to take this elections numbers and use them to determine how many machines you need would have required a crystal ball. Show me the voting patterns at the polls you are speaking about. All I could attest to was the voting pattern of the one I worked at, a vastly Dem. precinct.

The math is simple. If people take 6 minutes to vote only 130 people can vote in the usual 13 hours. The math was against us (the poll workers). Our allotment of 3 machines could have handled at least 390 voters a day. We had not seen that many voters for nearly 8 years. Also, this ballot, with all the levies AND Issue 1 (gay marriage/union issue) was the longest I have seen in over 20 years. Normally people only take about 3-4 minutes to vote (there is a 5 minute limit we can impose but what are we supposed to do, drag them out of the booth?). People were taking well over 6 minutes each.

[chorti]

23. active voters is the best measure

"Active voters" counts voters who have voted in either of the last two elections or who are newly registered. And, it doesn't really matter. The question is not whether there were too few machines. That's an excuse and avoiding the real question. Obviously there were too few machines. The real question is, how were those too few machines distributed? Did all communities have to equally suffer the consequences of the lack of voting machines? And, the answer is no. The African American community suffered more than any other community. And it's not because so many folks came out to vote. Yes, that's true, and it made it worse. But by whatever measure you use, the allocation was discriminatory.

Even if this election had a low turnout like 2000, there still would have been long lines in African American precincts. Because machines were taken away from African American precincts but not from heavily Republican precincts. Even if you use the number of 2000 voters as a basis for distributing voting machines, the allocation was discriminatory. There is no way around it. This was intentional, not random, not an oversight, not due to a lack of voting machines, not due to an unexpected high turnout in African American communities.

[mod mom]

25. I had 139 active reg voter in my precinct..

which unfortunately went for b***. I truly believe that placement of machines was done intentionally to suppress the vote. Blackwell is hiding behind his skin color. All he cares about is his own career.

[Cory Laf]

26. Congressional elections

its no mystery that congressional election's draw WAY less than presidential elections. I believe the national avg was only around 20ish% in 2002 as far as congressional elections

[jmknapp]

16. You don't know what you're talking about

That file (the same one used by Arnebeck) was sent to me by someone at the Board of Elections, file name MACHINE ASSIGNMENT EVALUATION POST GEN 04.pdf

It is evidently an internal study.

Also, it is simply a fact that there was unfair allocation of machines, based on the stated standard of active voters per machine. Your appeal to a board member (who was not, by the way, involved in the allocation) is beside the point. The inequity may be intentional, it may be incompetence, but it happened.

Matt Damschroder said on the Fred Anderle NPPR show that the board members do not get involved in the machine allocation. That is done by other staff at the BOE.

We should find out exactly what criteria they used, because it was manifestly not just active voters per machine.

Joe

[UVASAM1]

10. suppression

Is any of this illegal? The chair is a Democrat -- are there any more links to what might have explained his action or where he may have responded to it?

[chorti]

12. Look at the staff not the board

Director Matthew M. Damschroder - former E.D. of the Franklin County Republican Party.
Deputy Director Michael R. Hackett (is a Democrat)

Damschroder and Ken Blackwell both met with George W. Bush himself on election day in Columbus, Ohio.
<http://rantworld.blogs.com/rantworld/2004/11/whats_wrong_wit_1.html>


From the Columbus Free Press: Refresher on Franklin County (none / 1)

This is a repeat from Election Day . . .
This morning, voters in the 55th and 5th Wards of Columbus' near east side, majority African American and overwhelmingly Democratic areas, were waiting between two to three hours to cast their votes. At seven of the eight polling places, Free Press observers counted only three voting machines per location.

According to the presiding judge at the polling site, at the Columbus Model Neighborhood facility at 1393 E. Broad St., there had been five machines during the 2004 primary. At Douglas Elementary School, there had been four machines during the light turnout of the spring primary.

Many voters are complaining that they believe the Franklin County Board of Elections, headed by Matt Damschroder, former Franklin County Republican Party Chair, deliberately placed too few machines in the center city.

The nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition lodged complaints with the Franklin County Board of Elections. One Board of Elections employee commented that the nonpartisan poll watchers were "the problem."

At the Model Neighborhood facility, poll watchers documented six voters who left the long lines due to a disability that prevented standing in long lines or needing to go to work. At Douglas Elementary School, two disabled people, one with cancer and one walking with the aid of a cane, also left before waiting on average two hours and 40 minutes to vote. At three of the sites, including the Laborers Hall on Alum Creek Dr., lines of people waiting to vote stretched out the door in the driving rain.

But the young black couple at the back of line insisted that they expected such tactics in the Republican-dominated county and were prepared to wait all day to vote.

A middle-aged black male told the Free Press that he was self-employed and he could "out-wait Bush."

The lines are expected to grow longer over the lunch hour, a traditional high volume voting period, and grow even longer after 5pm. The Franklin County Board of Elections claims it is all out of voting machines and can't assign any more to the inner city areas, which are experiencing record turnout. Election Protection observers found much shorter lines at more machines at polling sites in the suburbs.

The Free Press only observed three Republican poll challengers at the predominantly black inner city polling site in the 55th and 5th wards. No challenges had been reported during the morning voting. At one of the sites, the Republican agreed that they needed more voting machines.

A fraudulent flier was distributed throughout the near east side under the Franklin County Board of Elections name telling Democrats that, due to record turnouts, they could vote on Wednesday.

[jmknapp]

18. Someone I know talked to the chairman

...at Mayor Coleman's birthday party. This is what my correspondent told me:

"He initially said that there were many inner city precincts that had more machines than before. He said the deployment was based on Active Voters. He felt he met the interests of black Democrats. I pointed out that there were many black precincts that had fewer machines. He countered with the fact that we didn't have enough machines. I don't believe he has seen any numbers.
He was taken aback when I told him Franklin County had a 61% turnout. With more voting machines, we could have reached 66% or 69%, with 10,000 to 30,000 net votes for Kerry. That got his attention."

[IndyOp]

19. My student N...

volunteered in Ohio and told me about the ridiculous situation at his poll in a dominantly African American neighborhood. The few machines they had kept breaking down all day, lines were long, lots of people left. When I briefly mentioned vote fraud in class the other day he came up immediately afterwards to say that it HAD happened - he saw it.

Anthony seems honest, perhaps clueless about misbehavior of others?
< http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/975 >
William Anthony, Chair of the Franklin County Board of Elections, .... also confirmed that the Board only delivered 2741 of its 2866 machines at the opening of polls on Election Day.  He said Board of Elections workers later placed an additional 44. This would put the total number in use at the “close of polls” at 2785, leaving 81 machines sitting unused. Anthony further said Election Day problems were the result of utilizing essentially 4800 volunteers with minimal training, paid a small stipend. Some poll workers have testified they repeatedly called the Board of Elections for additional machines as lines stacked up at their inner city precincts but got no response. 

Damschroder is implicated:
< http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/972 >
The Free Press reported that Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder deliberately withheld voting machines from predominantly black Democratic wards in Columbus, and dispersed some of the machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County. Damschroder is the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party. Sources close to the Board of Elections told the Free Press that Damschroder and Ohio’s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell met with President George W. Bush in Columbus on Election Day.

[lakeguy]

27. whoever was responsible for the placement of the machines...

it is still wrong for people to have to wait HOURS to vote. expecially in a state like OH, those who are afraid for their jobs, or can't afford to lose the hours, will not be able to vote. i don't care if God himself was in charge...this must be fixed.

[MarkusQ]

28. ...got to decide who would be president.

it is still wrong for people to have to wait HOURS to vote. especially in a state like OH, those who are afraid for their jobs, or can't afford to lose the hours, will not be able to vote. i don't care if God himself was in charge...this must be fixed.

It is wrong. It's also an unconstitutional poll tax. And a major civil rights crime.

But most interesting of all, it's the way someone was able to rig the 2004 presidential election. 15 thousand votes here, 20 thousand there...pretty soon you've got the margin by which the race was "decided."

--MarkusQ