I Ended Up Sounding Like Such An Idiot Back In 2004

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18. Report entered into the Congressional record.

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-151/issue-2/house-section/article/H84-6

Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio

executive summary

Representative John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on
the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Democratic staff to
conduct an investigation into irregularities reported in the
Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report
concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress
scheduled for January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the
votes of the electoral college for president. The following
Report includes a brief chronology of the events; summarizes
the relevant background law; provides detailed findings
(including factual findings and legal analysis); and
describes various recommendations for acting on this Report
going forward.
We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in
the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a
significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these
irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousands of votes
and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it
can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004,
were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone
federal requirements and constitutional standards.
This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1)
consistent with the requirements of the United States
Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by
Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements,
there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the
State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings
into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we
believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the
appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and
Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3)
Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our
people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include
putting in place more specific federal protections for
federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit
capability for electronic voting machines and casting and
counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed
changes to federal and state election laws.
With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that
there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and
anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were
caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much
of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the
co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
First, in the run up to election day, the following actions
by Mr. Blackwell, the Republican Party and election officials
disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens,
predominantly minority and Democratic voters:
The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented
long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of
thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.
This was illustrated by the fact that the Washington Post
reported that in Franklin County, ``27 of the 30 wards with
the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for
Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven
wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for
Kerry.'' Among other things, the conscious failure to
provide sufficient voting machinery violates the Ohio
Revised Code which requires the Boards of Elections to
``provide adequate facilities at each polling place for
conducting the election.''
Mr. Blackwell's decision to restrict provisional ballots
resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds,
of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and
Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwell's decision departed from
past Ohio law on provisional ballots, and there is no
evidence that a broader construction would have led to any
significant disruption at the polling places, and did not do
so in other states.
Mr. Blackwell's widely reviled decision to reject voter
registration applications based on paper weight may have
resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in
time for the 2004 election.
The Ohio Republican Party's decision to engage in
preelection ``caging'' tactics, selectively targeting 35,000
predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative
impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit

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found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation
of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from
targeting minority voters for poll challenges.
The Ohio Republican Party's decision to utilize thousands
of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and
Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of
legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but became
discouraged the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions
were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican
officials: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican
Party, admitted the challenges ``can't help but create chaos,
longer lines and frustration.''
Mr. Blackwell's decision to prevent voters who requested
absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis
from being able to receive provisional ballots likely
disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of
voters, particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr.
Blackwell's order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA.
Second, on election day, there were numerous unexplained
anomalies and irregularities involving hundreds of thousands
of votes that have yet to be accounted for:
There were widespread instances of intimidation and
misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the
Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and
the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwell's apparent failure to
institute a single investigation into these many serious
allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty
under Ohio law to investigate election irregularities.
We learned of improper purging and other registration
errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens
of thousands of voters statewide. The Greater Cleveland Voter
Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga County alone
over 10,000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as a
result of official registration errors.
There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast
for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be
inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two
precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of
over 25% each--accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood
in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for
president.
There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities
in other counties throughout the state: (i) In Mahoning
county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown
number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County
locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI
warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI
states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting
records of Perry county show significantly more votes than
voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than
voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one
ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded
Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received
more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential
candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker
error may have led to little known third party candidates
receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had
ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas;
(vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and
highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the
precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes
were recorded for President Bush.
Third, in the post-election period we learned of numerous
irregularities in tallying provisional ballots and conducting
and completing the recount that disenfranchised thousands of
voters and call the entire recount procedure into question
(as of this date the recount is still not complete):
Mr. Blackwell's failure to articulate clear and consistent
standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in
the loss of thousands of predominantly minority votes. In
Cuyahoga County alone, the lack of guidance and the
ultimate narrow and arbitrary review standards
significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out of
24,472 provisional ballots were ruled invalid, the highest
proportion in the state.
Mr. Blackwell's failure to issue specific standards for the
recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of
both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses.
We found innumerable irregularities in the recount in
violation of Ohio law, including (i) counties which did not
randomly select the precinct samples; (ii) counties which did
not conduct a full hand court after the 3% hand and machine
counts did not match; (iii) counties which allowed for
irregular marking of ballots and failed to secure and store
ballots and machinery; and (iv) counties which prevented
witnesses for candidates from observing the various aspects
of the recount.
The voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted
that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in
numerous counties to provide ``cheat sheets'' to those
counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election
officials how many votes they should find for each candidate,
and how many over and under votes they should calculate to
match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing
a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.


Chronology of Events

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