Why Did Long Voting Lines in Dem. Ohio Precincts Mean Low Voter Turnout?

[Time for change]

I posted a thread that looks at this question on GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5433171&mesg_id=5433171

4 cities in Ohio during the 2004 election were characterized by numerous reports of long voting lines, and yet their "official" turnout was 15% less than the rest of the state. If one assumes an average turnout for those 4 cities, Kerry gets more than 70,000 additional NET votes.

[bullimiami]

1. obviously they were experiencing record turnouts but only low numbers

of voters ever got to cast a ballot.
that is one of the tools of the election rigging trade.

[Time for change]

3. I think that there was more than the long lines that were keeping

the "official" turnout down.

There were plenty of people there, and though perhaps thousands of them left before voting, it would still seem that there were plenty enough of them there that the turnout should have been decent.

[FloridaPat]

2. Some people can only stand in line so long. THey have to go to

work, they have to go home and fix dinner, they can't stand for 2-4 hours. So they leave and don't come back.

[Time for change]

7. Yes, but I think that there were other issues at play here as well

I see no reason to believe that all of the low turnout was due simply to the long lines. To a large extent I see the long lines as an indication of HIGH voter turnout, not just insufficient number of machines, particularly in Cleveland and Akron. See my above post #s 30 and 35.

Even though punch card machines were used in many of the individual precincts, central tabulators were used to compile the votes. Two Cuyahoga County election workers were indicted because they illegally prevented a complete recount of the county. Why did they do everything they could to prevent a recount in Cuyahoga County, and numerous other counties as well? Why did they lock the press out of the building while they counted the votes in Warren County? There are so many unanswered questions. Why assume that they didn't use electronic means to steal this election as well?

[philb]

4. EIRS: long lines,etc. in Franklin County, Cuyahoga C, Mahoning Co.,etc.

Long lines and lots of other problems in franklin county/Columbus
http://www.flcv.com/franklin.html

Cuyahoga County(Polling place problems, long line, machine problems, Voter Suppression, widespread dirty tricks & malfeasance to reduce minority vote, cause votes in wrong precinct) Cleveland
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahovs.html
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahoga.html
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahodt.html
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahopb.html

Mahoning County Youngstown http://www.flcv.com/mahonts.html
Some Touch Screen machines switch vote from Kerry to Bush
Some Touch Screen machines switch vote from Kerry to blank
Some Touch Screen machine freeze/many switching or freezing/Long lines
(long lines, dirty tricks, registration, absentee, and provisional irregularities)
http://www.flcv.com/mahonot.html

******************************************
other areas also had problems in minority precincts

Montgomery County Election Problems Dayton http://www.flcv.com/montgomo.html
(Long lines and polling place irregularities in minority precincts, dirty tricks, registration problems, absentee ballot and provisional ballot problems, suppression of minorities, possible fraud)


Hamilton County http://www.flcv.com/hamilton.html
(A machine problem prevents vote for Kerry, dirty tricks and apparent misinformation/malfeasance to reduce minority vote through registrations, absentees, provisionals) Cincinati


similar in Lucas County/Toleldo
http://www.flcv.com/lucasoh.html

[Time for change]

5. Yes, I believe that several mechanisms were used to steal this election

[philb]

15. A major problem in Cleveland was fraud in way votes counted; not

primarily a problem of long lines- though that was a lesser factor
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/caterpillar.htm

[Time for change]

16. I'm not exactly saying that it's the long lines in Cleveland that are the

problem.

What I'm saying is that the long lines, in combination with the very low voter turnout, suggests that something is very fishy there. I think that votes were electronically deleted in order to get the turnout down. I don't think that the long lines by themselves can explain such a low turnout.

With regard to the caterpillar crawl issue, that's only been shown to account for a net loss of Kerry of somewhere aroung a thousand votes. There may have been more, but nobody has shown this yet.

[applegrove]

6. Anything that gives busy & harried people an excuse to not vote often

works. What if you are a single mom and really cannot afford a babysitter. But ya do anyway - and then boom - you hear the lines are long and you drive by and go home - cause you don't have that kind of time or money.

A thousand little reasons why a too long line is bad. Some people cannot stand for long.

There is probably an equation like Motivation/number of responsibilities during the day = the odds of how long you wait in line. Or something.

35% of americans are used to not voting. Would no take much to turn them around and go home. Much apathy.

[Time for change]

9. I wouldn't put all the blame on the voter - or even most of it

People had to wait in lines up to 11 hours. There are a lot of poor people who could lose their job if they didn't leave those voting lines. And furthermore, there is a good likelihood that at least some, if not a great deal of the official "low turnout" was due to electronic manipulation of the vote.

[applegrove]

11. Oh absolutely. I was not putting blame on people. People have

responsibilities was one of my points.

After reading some more background on the elections..it turns out that Democrats had massive increases in people voting and the machine numbers per poll were based on something other than the "latest" people on the voters list. The Repukes had already maximized their voters I guess. The Dems had great increases and nobody upped the number of machines.

Shows that there is a lack of coordination of Dems on the ground. If they knew they were increasing the voters lists - which they must have - they should not have just left the number of machines to chance.

But then again machines are new technology and perhaps less likely to fix "too few" during the course of a day unlike "ballots or butterfly ballots" where you can call up some central office and demand more paper, etc.

Anyway. There seem to be lots of reasons why the 2 to 3% in many polls were lost to long line ups.

Yep - 11 hours would do me in!

[Time for change]

13. But why blame it on lack of coordination by the Dems?

Blackwell was running the election. Us Democrats didn't get to determine how many machines were sent. Blackwell and other relevant officials were begged to provide enough machines.

[applegrove]

14. I was reading the salon review of the miller book. They pointed

out some inaccuracies in it (I think I have the names right). Anyway - I didn't know that the ridings - whose election boards were filled with dems - knew before-hand that the dem voting lists were way up.

For sure the Repukes are not going to voluntarily solve issues like that.

And notice how i pointed out that with machines - instead of paper ballots and chads systems that can easily be moved from one venue or from some central storehouse across a state in a few hours - machines are not flexible like that. You have to set them up and calibrate. So the planning has to be done way before.

The message is that these machines have lots of problems.

The message is we have to be on top of any changes in # on voting lists - months before.

So that is an issue we have to be on top of.

[Time for change]

17. Yes, we certainly do need to be on top of it

or they're going to rob us blind -- again.

[applegrove]

18. They stole hearts and minds. And their were weird games being

played in some ridings. There always are but it seemed to be more systematic than ever before. Down with Exit Polls - they are mysteriously wrong all of a sudden and keep Dems home in the same way long lines do.


Transparency Now!

[Time for change]

8. Self delete

[Land Shark]

10. Multiple causation should be considered the default rule, not single

explanations.

Note the pattern of responses above where people look for the ONE thing that would only PURPORT to POSSIBLY explain the results.

I think TFC is exactly correct to look for multiple reasons.

If you look only for one, you are like the fisherman who blames depleted fish populations because everyone has seen those eagles and ospreys swoop down and grab fish... so they MUST be the reason.

Even if there are record numbers of eagles and ospreys, it's still far more likely we are looking at habitat loss, pollution and/or other facts in addition to the high bird population.

Same thing applies with elections: don't focus simply on what you can SEE, when more hidden factors can be at play.

BUT HERE'S THE RUB: talking about hidden factors especially where someone else creates the secrecy and the citizen wants to talk about it makes one (potentially) into a conspiracy theorist, making educated guesses about otherwise hidden things.

Hypothetically, if I controlled a system and wanted to do things in a secret or hidden way, the PRESSURE POINT I would exploit (so I don't have to control EVERYTHING) is at the level of "conspiracy theory". I would make sure that anyone who wrote about or thought about these things I was hiding were roundly mocked in the media for their "idle speculations." This would be very likely to work real slickly because, those educated guessers will often be wrong (they've been placed deliberately in the dark) and even if not wrong nearly always DISPUTABLE.

People like Manjoo, seemingly good activists and political types will sense the danger of speculating about relatively unknown things and prove their own high status and probity by attacking the conspiracy theorists. And they won't even have to be on Land Shark's evil twin's payroll!! Wunderbar!!!!
:woohoo:

[Time for change]

12. Gosh Landshark, that must be your evil twin talking

;-)

Yes, I really get frosted sometimes when I hear anyone call me (or other people who believe as I do) a "conspiracy theorist" -- in a derogatory manner. Well, of course I'm a conspiracy theorist -- isn't any sane person these days. It seems to me that it's less naive to believe in Santa Claus than it is to think that the world isn't filled with conspiracies.

Anyhow, if you haven't done so already, you may want to take a look at some of the legal issues that have come up on the main thread. That stuff confuses the hell out of me.

[kiwi_expat]

19. Cuyahoga signature counts "very much different" from ballot counts !

"From what they were able to get through, witnesses found that signature counts were very much different from the official recorded number of ballots." -Cuyahoga recount observer
http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ohio_reports/counties/cuyahoga.php


Something was definitely wrong in Cuyahoga county! You were right, Tfc.

[Time for change]

20. Thank you for digging this up kiwi

So why on earth has this received so little publicity, and what more is needed to justify further investigation -- such as a full recount? Any thoughts on this?