Reply #71: Ballot orders are discussed in great detail online.

[L. Coyote]

What you point out here is a side-affect of rotated ballot orders and how they are assigned. Because ballot order assignments follow the precinct number sequence, there are some built-in inequities that alter cross-vote probabilities for adjacent candidates in the order, ie. Bush and Kerry.

So votes are being switched without a conspiracy to modify tabulation. And they stay switched no matter how many recounts are done!

Ballot orders are discussed in detail in the 2004 Ohio Election - Presidential Ballot Orders and Cross-Voting page. It discusses all the ballot order combinations and the probabilities of vote-switching for the possible combinations.

Another Web page at the site 2004 Ohio Election - Analysis, Summary, Charts, and Spreadsheets and the article "How Kerry Votes were Switched to Bush Votes!" discusses specific examples in Cuyahoga County and some of the non-random aspects of cross-voting.
.