| 2004 U.s. Presidential Election Controversy And Irregularities |
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Among the issues raised were allegations or complaints regarding obstacles to , many of the alleged improprieties (such as long lines or tampering) could not be addressed in a recount. This article provides detailed coverage of these issues. For a broad summary of controversies surrounding the voting process, see 2004 United States Election Voting Controversies . ISSUES ] The concerns included:
Voting machine security and HAVA Partially in response to the 2000 Presidential Election Controversy In Florida , where problems with Punch Card Voting Systems led to Bush V. Gore , Congress passed a law called the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which appropriated $3.8 billion to replace punch-card and lever voting systems.10 Around 50 million votes were cast using Electronic Voting machines, while 32 million votes were cast with punch cards in the 2004 U.S. election. New Study Shows 50 Million Voters Will Use Electronic Voting Systems, 32 Million Still with Punch Cards in 2004 from Election Data Services As the use of these machines became mainstream, several reports were released that highlighted insecurities with OpticalScan and DRE voting systems.11 The electronic voting machine industry joined the Information Technology Association Of America , an industry organization that represents hundreds of the top technology companies in the U.S.,12 and created the "Election Technology Council" in order to address these concerns. Many Voting Machines do not record votes on a paper medium.13 Demonstrations have shown significant vulnerabilities with some electronic voting machine.141516 Some, including Stanford professor David Dill , believe a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail is required for proper auditing of electronic results and is difficult if not impossible without it.17 According to a team of security experts, even a small alteration of the machine could have been enough to change the result in battleground states.18 Some computer scientists have said these machines are not Tamper Resistant and that Open -architecture voting machines would make the process more transparent.19 The voting public is denied access to the manufacturer's Proprietary Software , and the official certifications often do not include third party software (such as a Windows Operating System .202122 In several cases, agencies and experts examining the machines expressed dismay at their quality and security.23 At least one voting machine began counting backwards to zero when it reached 32,000 votes. The manufacturer, ES&S, allegedly had known of this issue for two years but had failed to fix the bug.24 In two cases, a Independent Testing Authori (CIBER Inc.) recommended voting machines for . June 13,2007 Some managers and/or affiliates of each of these also have criminal records, including cases of computer fraud, embezzlement, and bid rigging.29303132 In addition, voting machine companies have been accused of major security and law violations. Employees (including senior executives) have been found to have had multiple prior convictions including bans for bid rigging, embezzlement, and drug trafficking,333435 installing uncertified and untested versions of software on Touchscreen voting machines, and tampering with computer files.36 According to internal email messages at the manufacturers, data files used in the machines are not password protected to prevent manual editing.37 The top three voting machine companies (ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia) account for over 90% of voting machines in use.3839 Exit polls Main article: 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Controversy, Exit Polls Exit Poll interviews of voters leaving the polling place have been used in other countries to expose election fraud. In the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Election , for example, exit poll discrepancies were an indication of possible election fraud. 40 41 42 43 4445 A re-vote was eventually ordered and the election result was overturned. The National Election Pool (NEP), a consortium of news organizations responsible for conducting most exit polls for the 2004 election, hired Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International (Edison/Mitofsky) to conduct the polls. The stated goal of NEP's and Edison/Mitofsky's exit polling and subsequent analysis is to accurately predict election winners, not to detect fraud. Accordingly, they adjust the final (published) exit poll results to match actual vote counts. According to blogger Mark Blumenthal, in the 2004 election, pre-adjustment exit poll results were most likely leaked onto the Internet during Election Day via CNN. 46 These results, based on unadjusted exit polls, indicated that Kerry was leading Bush. 47 According to an internal review of 1,400 precincts, Kerry's vote in the exit poll was higher than that in the vote count by an average of 1.9 percent. At one point during the day, Kerry's lead over Bush was estimated to be 3% of the popular vote. 48 Differences between vote counts and pre-adjustment exit poll results were larger in battleground states. A preliminary report 49 from the California Institute Of Technology purported to show no discrepancy in the exit poll data. Another analysis 50 from Steven Freeman, a professor at the University Of Pennsylvania , gained initial media attention by asserting that the odds were less than 1 in 250 million that the difference between unadjusted exit poll data and actual vote counts was due to chance, although he later revised these odds to 1 in 662,000. His paper has attracted criticism from polling statisticians for not having incorporated large enough design effects, which would mean that the paper overstated the odds against these anomalies occurring by chance, and for other statistical failings. 51 Initial exit poll results indicated that Bush made substantial gains among Hispanics, especially in his home state of Texas, but some of these apparent gains now seem to have evaporated. 52 A correction 5354 reported by the Press reduced Bush's support substantially, turning an 18-point Bush margin among Texan Hispanics into a narrow Kerry lead. Nationwide figures reported later by NBC reduced Bush's gains further, while other surveys have produced mixed results. A poll by the William C. Velasquez Institute 55 indicated that Bush's gains among Hispanics since 2000 were not statistically significant, but the University Of Pennsylvania 's larger National Annenberg Election Survey showed a significant increase in Bush's support. 56 In a 77-page report issued in January 2005 , the polling company, Edison/Mitofsky, denied the possibility that fraud caused differences between exit poll results and vote tallies. 57 Edison/Mitofsky believes "Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters" and that this willingness was the cause of the error in the exit poll results. Edison/Mitofsky said their evaluation does not support the hypothesis that discrepancies were higher in precincts using electronic voting equipment. A group called US Count Votes responded with its own report 58, saying: Their report also states that Edison/Mitofsky did not adequately investigate whether the type of voting machine was a factor in discrepancies. Several professors of statistics and other analytical fields contributed to the US Count Votes report. The report recommended that a national database of precinct-level election results be compiled to support rigorous statistical analysis. US Count Votes have since produced a further report (''Executive Summary'' 59, ''Full Report'' 60), which claims that Edison/Mitofsky's data gives support to the idea that the exit polls were more accurate than the official vote tallies, and that a thorough investigation and exhaustive recounts in key states would be appropriate. Vote suppression The term "voter suppression" is used to describe methods of discouraging or impeding people from voting. The government agency or private entity doing so believes that the would-be voters thus turned away would have been more likely to vote for an opponent. For example, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) described alleged voter suppression in his state (Ohio): Voting technology irregularities - In 2004, the issue of long lines and unequal voting machine distribution (among other issues) received increased attention in Ohio . In many places, voters had to wait several hours to vote. 62 These waits have been attributed to an overall increase in voter registration without the mandated proportional increase in voting machines in some precincts (some precincts ''lost'' voting machines while ''gaining'' registered voters); misdirection of voters, and poorly trained staff.63 64 65 " Ballot Spoilage " was also a major issue, and was predominantly reported in African American precincts.66 67 68. This problem first surfaced in Florida in the Previous Presidential Election . In that election, punch-card machines were likewise distributed in disproportionally high amounts in African American precincts.69 70 Public recognition of the potential for abuse by allocating these machines disproportionately resulted in nation-wide efforts by citizen groups to discontinue the use of these machines.71 In 2004, the punch-card ballots were still widely used in some states. For example, more than 90,000 votes cast in Ohio were discounted, many allegedly due to "hanging" chads. 72 Voter registration irregularities - Allegations of voter registration fraud were made by both parties in many states during the 2004 election. Some of the controversies involved the procedure by which workers are paid per registration. In Colorado at least 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms were submitted. 73 Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson issued a statement saying: In Nevada, former field registrars for the Republican party and for the Republican party-funded group "Voters Outreach of America" claimed that they had been instructed to "dispose of" any voter registrations they received from Democrats. A Republican official described the allegations as an "outright lie", and that there was "no way anyone would issue instructions to destroy valid registrations, even from Democrats". 74, 75, 76 Months prior to the election, the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections filed suit against the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Board Of Elections , claiming that they botched or failed to file the registration of at least 10,000 voters. Provisional ballot irregularities - During the election, a record number of provisional ballots - ballots for people who believed they had registered but were not on the voter rolls - were filled out in that county. Of those, 33% (8,099) were ultimately thrown out, more than three and a half times the normal Ohio rate of 9%.77 78 Shortly after the ballots had been counted, the People For The American Way filed a lawsuit seeking to have provisional ballots re-examined, demanding that provisional ballots be accepted regardless of the precinct they were filed in, in accordance with Ohio state law and the Voting Rights Act Of 1965 , and that registration be checked against voter registration cards, rather than just electronic voting lists.79 Absentee ballot irregularities - Absentee ballots were also an issue. In Broward County, Florida , over 58,000 absentee ballots sent to the Postal Service to be sent out to voters were never received by the Postal Service, according to the Postal Service and county election officials. 80 Tire slashing - In Wisconsin , the son of Rep. Gwen Moore (D) and four volunteers for the Kerry / Edwards Campaign slashed tires on 25 vans rented by Republicans to aid in voter turnout. Republican campaign workers were able to replace the vans in time to take voters to the polls. Spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Seth Boffeli, said the five were paid employees of Kerry's campaign, but were not acting on behalf of the campaign or party.81 All five were arrested and faced felony charges. . Four of the five, including Rep. Moore's son, were sentenced to 4 to 6 months in jail.82. Allegations of racial discrimination and other bias Some critics allege that the pattern of voter disenfranchisement is by design, having disproportionately affected racial minorities and/or urban precincts. For example, the U.S. Commission On Civil Rights estimated that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African American s, who represented only 11 percent of the voters. 83 People For The American Way and the NAACP catalogued a number of voting problems with discriminatory impacts through early 2004.84 The 2004 election continued the trend that African Americans were much more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. As a result, a disproportionate reduction in the African-American vote would tend to hurt Democratic candidates. BBC journalist Greg Palast , a self-described progressive, alleged that if the election had been conducted without improprieties, Kerry would have won the presidency. 8586878889 Jesse Jackson remarked on Election Day: "Suppose 500 black folks came into a white neighborhood to challenge votes. It would be totally unacceptable. We will not surrender in the face of this madness." 90 91. In August 2004, the NAACP and other civil rights leaders charged that the Republican Party was mounting a campaign to keep African Americans and other minority voters away from the polls in November.92 International election monitoring A small team of international election monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were invited to monitor the U.S. election. The OSCE observers were granted access to polling stations in a number of states, although sometimes only in specific counties. The monitors criticised partisan election officials and the long lines at polling places, but said that electronic voting machines generally appeared to run smoothly. Allegations of a media 'lockdown' Since reports of irregularities surrounding the 2004 Presidential vote first started to surface, there has been an ongoing complaint by concerned citizens that the corporate media has not given enough coverage to the issue, or has in fact intentionally minimized coverage and public awareness. 9596 Although numerous publications have covered the voting process leading up to, during and following the election, the allegation of a "media lockdown" has persisted and grown as the majority of the coverage and insight into the election irregularities has taken place in alternative media outlets (independent/local media, internet media, etc.).97 In light of numerous troublesome occurrences, most notably the exit polls withheld from public scrutiny by various media corporations who own the data, allegations of corporate or government manipulation and suppression of the media continue.9899 Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), in an open letter to supporters, alluded to such a media lockdown: Other controversies and allegations There have been incidents of irregularity, confusion or possible malfeasance in official handling of ballots with address errors, missing birthdates or other discrepancies, where such handling has been alleged to be contrary to standing law. Please see the In The News section for a list of reports detailing reported irregularities and unresolved aspects of the election. In Cleveland, a mistake in precinct poll coordination led to hundreds of presidential votes being cast for a third party candidate instead of the intended candidate. 101 Another article 102 alleges that Democratic results on election night were withheld until Republican results had moved ahead. Some analysts have suggested that a discrepancy between the loss margins of minor Democratic Supreme Court candidate C. Ellen Connally and Kerry/Edwards indicates vote manipulation: one would expect a minor candidate to receive fewer votes, relatively speaking, than the major candidate for the party. In some areas, this situation was reversed. 103 Blackboxvoting. ORG104 reports that the following voting irregularities are directly foreseeable: "There are some who are using election-manipulation techniques to transfer a block of power to their friends. This is a business plan, or a form of organized crime, depending on how alarmed you are ... Manipulation of elections includes the following attack points." # Strategic redistricting, ignoring normal timelines for re-evaluation. # Orchestrated vote suppression: Hiring "challengers" to confront voters in targeted areas; moving polling places at the last minute, "losing" the voter registration records for a percentage of targeted voters, booting up equipment late, or not having enough equipment in minority districts. # Casting and counting the vote on manipulatable and insecure systems. Blackboxvoting. ORG105 has alleged106 it was ''"under attack around the time of the 2004 election, repeatedly, using various methods, very aggressively."'' The attack ''"was not random. It was clearly a targeted attack using a variety of methods..."'' Also, it was reported that in Ohio, postcards telling voters to vote on November 3rd, a day after the true presidential election were circulated. In one instance, Chad Staton of Defiance, Ohio, charged with filing 124 false voter registration forms, said he committed the felonies in exchange for crack cocaine from Georgianne Pitts of Toledo, who was working for NAACP National Voter Fund . 107 VOTER'S RIGHTS ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS Blackboxvoting.org Black Box Voting has launched a fraud audit into Florida and Ohio. Three investigators (Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson, and Kathleen Wynne) were in Florida requesting hand counts on selected counties that had not fully complied with blackboxvoting.org's Nov. 2 Freedom of Information requests. Blackboxvoting.org accuses Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of failing to properly account for provisional ballots, and refusing to allow citizens to see pollbooks. |
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