Reply #71: Will the Chair of the Franklin Co Dem Party now offer election reformers

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an apology for referring to us as "conspiracy theorists", now that a prominent member of the Dem Party (outside the CBC and Sen Boxer) has spoke out?

As I wrap-up my testimony, Mr. Chairman, I would like to address two situations in Franklin County that have been taken up by the conspiracy-theorists and internet-bloggers alike as quote-unquote evidence of fraud and their reason why Franklin County’s and Ohio’s election results cannot be trusted. Regrettably, even Ohio’s Secretary of State and some of our fellow elections officials have joined their lot in wrongly blaming the statewide recount on these events in Franklin County. These two situations are, of course, the long-lines at voting locations allegedly due to the intentional misallocation of voting machines and the misreported, unofficial election night results from one of our county’s precincts.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, there were long lines to vote in Franklin County – in all of Franklin County. Some have alleged Republicans at the Board of Elections or Matt Damschroder himself intentionally caused these lines and that those precincts in predominantly African-American and-or Democrat precincts were deliberately targeted for a reduction in voting machines. I can assure you Mr. Chairman, both as a leader in the black community, Chairman of the local Democratic Party, and as Chairman of the Board of Elections that not one of these accusations are true. On Election Day, I spent several hours driving around the county in the rain and observed long lines in every part of the county: urban and suburban neighborhoods, black and white communities, Democrat and Republican precincts. These lines were the result of three things and these three things only. First, nearly one hundred thousand more people voted on Election Day 2004 than during 2000 – this is almost a 25% percent increase over the previous presidential election. Which brings me to the second reason. Despite the fact that we had a dramatic and historic increase in the number of voters compared to previous elections the resources available to the Board of Elections remained static. In 2000, the Board of Elections owned an inventory of 2,904 voting machines for 680,000 registered voters in 759 precincts. Four years later, in 2004, the Board of Elections owned an inventory of 2,904 voting machines – the exact same number of voting machines as in 2000 – a static resource that had to be spread even thinner to meet the increased demand of voting machines for 847,000 registered voters in 788 precincts.

http://cha.house.gov/hearings/Testimony.aspx?TID=668

THERE WAS NOT FAIR ALLOCATION OF MACHINES!

Sorry, but this irks me that after I worked so hard and full time for the Dems in '04 that this is what one of our party chairs said under oath. BTW, in my Franklin Co precinct we waited for 15 minutes to vote on election day during pre-work rush at 8 am-my precinct went for *. Later that day a neighbor said there were no lines at all when he voted. My husband, a "runner" for the Kerry Campaign GOTV activities filed an affidavit saying short or no lines in our ward.