Dems Surging in Voter Registration Nationally BUT Cuyahoga County Looks Very Suspicious [View All]

I’ve discussed in detail in a previous post how purging of legally registered voters in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 enabled George W. Bush to win two presidential elections. To summarize briefly: Greg Palast showed (See pages 6-44) how approximately 92,000 voters, most of them Black (54%) and Democratic (90%), were illegally and purposely disenfranchised from the Florida 2000 election, thereby enabling Bush to win Florida and the general election by 537 votes. A report by Victoria Lovegren described the apparently illegal purging of 165,224 voters from heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County, Ohio, prior to the 2004 election, for no other specified rationale than that they hadn’t voted recently. In “Fooled Again – How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)”, Mark Crispin Miller documents how tens or hundreds of thousands of voters were purged from other Ohio counties as well, and how those purges were targeted against Democrats by using voting lists obtained from stolen computers.

Apparently, these events did not get enough national attention to prevent repeat performances. State GOP interests have since continued to collaborate with our corrupt U.S. Justice Department. Art Levine notes:


Because George W. Bush won two consecutive Presidential elections primarily because of voter purging, I thought it would be a good idea in 2008 to monitor voter registration statistics over time in Presidential swing states to see if anything suspicious turned up. The results, as detailed below, look pretty good in general. In the good majority of states, Democratic voter registration has far exceeded Republican voter registration, and therefore I see no clear evidence of substantial voter purging targeted at Democrats, as there was in 2000 and 2004. However, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, could be a problem again, as I’ll explain shortly.


RESULTS OF VOTER REGISTRATION MONITORING IN SWING STATES

The voter registration statistics listed below are based mostly on publicly available 2008 statistics. For a couple of states (MO, OH) I had to call the Secretary of State’s office to obtain the statistics, which were not otherwise publicly available. I still have no comparative statistics for Indiana, though I have requested them from the Indiana Secretary of State’s office.

I compared the earliest available statistics for 2008 (or end of year 2007) with the most recently available statistics.

I was able to do statewide comparisons by party for three swing states (PA, NM, CO, NC).

There were two states (FL, NV) where I was able to do comparisons for major counties by party, but for which I have not obtained timely statewide data (Florida’s will be available on October 20th), so I present here some major county data for those two states.

In four swing states (VA, MI, OH, MO) I was able to do comparisons by county and statewide, but not by party, since voter registration statistics in those states are not listed by party. So instead, I looked at counties that have major surpluses of Democratic voters (based on 2004 presidential election results) and compared voter registration gains in those counties with statewide totals.

There are six swing states (WI, MN, IA, MT, NH, ND) for which voter registration information is not very important, since they either have same day registration or no voter registration required at all (ND).


Voter registration statistics in states where statewide data by party is available

Pennsylvania: April 2008 – October 13, 2008
Democrats: 4,200,109 – 4,424,022 (+5.3%)
Republicans: 3,186,057 – 3,229,806 (+1.4%)

New Mexico: May 2008 – October 9, 2008
Democrats: 543,615 – 582,099 (+7.1%)
Republicans: 354,272 – 369,775 (+4.4%)

Colorado: January 2008 – September 30, 2008
Democrats: 880,761 – 997,146 (+13.2%)
Republicans: 1,011,152 – 1,045,457 (+3.4%)

North Carolina: April 2008 – October 11, 2008
Democrats: 2,616,995 – 2,756,751 (+5.3%)
Republicans: 1,933,929 – 1,966,323 (+1.7%)

Comment:
It is clear that in the four swing states where statewide voter registration by party is available, Democratic voter registration has far exceeded Republican voter registration in 2008. That could be because of Republican voters switching to the Democratic Party or because of more intensive voter registration efforts by Democrats than Republicans, or a combination of those two reasons. In any event, these statistics appear to be good news, and Obama is currently winning in all of them, by good margins in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, and by smaller margins in Colorado and North Carolina.


Voter registration statistics in states where party data is available but where timely statewide data is lacking

Florida
In Florida, statewide data is available, but was last updated in August (will be updated again on October 20). Therefore, in addition to the statewide data, I’m including data from two of the counties with the largest block of Democratic voters and largest Democratic margins in recent Presidential elections. I could not find recent data for Palm Beach County, which is another big Democratic county. If substantial voter purging is occurring in Florida this year, certainly Miami-Dade and Broward Counties would be two of the prime targets:

Miami-Dade: December 2007 – September 2008
Democrats: 453,260 – 523,402 (+15.5%)
Republicans: 359,750 – 373,164 (+3.7%)

Broward: December 2007 – October 14, 2008
Democrats: 451,855 – 530,663 (+17.4%)
Republicans: 228,968 – 243,464 (+6.3%)

Total state: December 2007 – August 2008
Democrats: 4,138,604 – 4,453,008 (+7.6%)
Republicans: 3,826,836 – 3,954,884 (+3.3%)


Nevada
Clark County has by far the largest population of any county in Nevada (more than triple that of any other county) and was also the only Nevada county to vote for John Kerry in 2004. Therefore, if Nevada was targeted for voter purging in 2008, certainly Clark County would be primarily involved:

Clark County: July 2008 – October 13, 2008
Democrats: 414,038 – 457,805 (+10.6%)
Republicans: 304,265 – 320,019 (+5.2%)


Comment:
As with the other swing state counties where voter registration statistics are available by party, the data available for Florida and Nevada show a substantial excess of voter registration for Democrats, compared with Republicans.


States for which voter registration data is not available by party

For the states where voter registration data is not available by party, I’ve picked the one or two jurisdictions with the largest mass of Democratic voters and Democratic voting margins in 2004, to compare with statewide data:

Missouri: January 2008 – September 29, 2008
St. Louis City gave more than 80% of its votes to John Kerry in 2004, giving him an excess of almost a hundred thousand votes, which was a larger margin of victory for Kerry than he gained from any county in the state. Therefore, any voter purging efforts in Missouri would almost certainly involve St. Louis City:

St. Louis City: 230,720 – 245,616 (+6.5%)
Total state: 3,542,110 – 3,610,790 (+1.9%)


Michigan: January 2008 – July 2008
Wayne County is by far the largest county in Michigan, and in 2004 it cast 69% of its votes for John Kerry, giving Kerry by far his largest margin of victory of any county in the state, a margin over George Bush of 342 thousand votes. Therefore, any voter purging occurring in Michigan would certainly target Wayne County.

Wayne: 1,348,028 – 1,386,576 (+2.9%)
Total state: 7,141,914 – 7,243,261 (+1.4%)


Virginia: January 2008 – September 2008
Arlington and Fairfax counties were the only counties in Virginia to give John Kerry more than a two thousand vote margin in 2004. They each gave Kerry more than a 30 thousand vote margin:

Arlington: 130,639 – 139,638 (+6.9%)
Fairfax: 634,439 – 657,393 (+3.6%)
Total state: 4,585,828 – 4,789,512 (+4.4%)


Ohio: December 2007 – October 14, 2008
Cuyahoga County is by far the largest county in Ohio. It voted for John Kerry by more than a two to one margin in 2004, giving him a margin of 227 thousand votes. That was despite the fact that nearly a couple hundred thousand voters were illegally purged from Cuyahoga County in 2004, as noted above:

Cuyahoga: 1,066,253 – 1,102,061 (+3.4%)
Total state: 7,765,950 – 8,244,912 (+6.2%)


Comment:
Obviously, it is more difficult to assess voter registration statistics in states where statistics are not broken down by party. Nevertheless, in Missouri and Michigan it is clear that the major Democratic jurisdiction in the state showed better voter registration than the state as a whole – though the most recent data for Michigan is July (October data should be released later this month). In Virginia, the results aren’t as clear cut, but the two major Democratic counties together did a little better in voter registration than the state as a whole. But what happened with Cuyahoga County?


SUSPICIONS ABOUT CUYAHOGA COUNTY

The one very disappointing result in this analysis is Cuyahoga County in Ohio. The small increase in voter registration of 3.4% is far smaller than Democratic gains in any of the states looked at in this analysis, with the possible exception of Michigan (for which we don’t have data any more recent than July). And Cuyahoga County exhibited only about half the increase in voter registration as did Ohio as a whole. Certainly the Obama campaign must have targeted Cuyahoga County for registering voters, since it is quite clear that Obama has to do very well there in order to win Ohio.

Then there is also the fact that it was voter purging in Cuyahoga County that in all probability lost Ohio and the national election for John Kerry in 2008.


Outside pressure on Ohio

But what could be happening in Ohio? Unlike 2004, Ohio now has a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Secretary of State. But I came across an interview today, of the Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, by FOX News. In that interview, Greta van Susteren brought up the phony issue of “voter fraud” and noted that a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against Brunner for “not taking enough steps to prevent voter fraud”.

What this appears to mean is that there is considerable pressure at the federal level being exerted on the election in Ohio this year. Brunner tried to explain that her office has not been able to find any evidence of “voter fraud”, but van Susteren wouldn’t let it go.

Then Brunner made some comments that make it absolutely clear that considerable outside pressure is being exerted on Ohio this year, which suggests to me that someone like Karl Rove may be behind this:


Following that, van Susteren went on some more about “voter fraud”, and then guess who she brought on? Kenneth Blackwell – the architect (probably with Rove) of the theft of the Ohio vote in 2004! I thought that crook was out of the picture.


What does all this mean?

Clearly, the Republican Party is targeting Ohio for election fraud again this year. It seems quite obvious that the orchestrated complaints of “voter fraud” are meant to prepare the ground for massive “challenges” of Ohio voters on Election Day.

Is voter purging being conducted electronically in Ohio?
What this has to do with the disappointingly small increase in registered voters this year in Cuyahoga County is not clear to me, though I suspect that there is a relationship. Presumably illegal purging of voters would not take place without the knowledge and/or complicity of the Secretary of State. And clearly, Jennifer Brunner would not get involved in that. But keep this in mind: When the illegal purging of almost 200 thousand voters in Cuyahoga County occurred in 2004, voter registration was handled electronically – by Diebold! I don’t know if they have the same contract again this year, but I don’t doubt that they do. And if voter purging could be accomplished again electronically, then perhaps it could be done without the knowledge of the Secretary of State.

Are “inactive voters” going to be handled appropriately in Ohio?
And there’s something else too. Ohio voter registration data is not posted on-line. I had to call the Secretary of State’s office to get it, and it took me several attempts, some non-returned phone messages, and a long time to get through to them and get the data. When I finally did get the data (very shortly after finally making phone contact with someone from the SOS office) I noticed that it pertained only to “active voters”. So I asked the person who sent me the data if I could have statistics on all voters, not just “active voters”. The woman explained to me that only “active voters” are important because “inactive voters” are not allowed to vote, since they have “either moved, died, or are incarcerated”. But that’s not my understanding of the situation. My understanding has always been that “inactive voters” are simply voters who haven’t voted in a long while and/or who moved, but may still be eligible to vote in a general election if they still reside in the same county. The reason I mention all this is that the interaction I had with this worker from the SOS office could mean that plans are being made to inappropriately disallow voters to vote in Ohio, whether they are purged from the voter rolls or not.

A word about provisional ballots
And one more thing to keep in mind: There has been a lot of bad-mouthing of provisional ballots since the 2004 election, probably in large part because there were nearly a hundred thousand provisional ballots that were not counted in Ohio in 2004. But keep in mind that the number of uncounted provisional ballots in Ohio in 2004 was less than Bush’s margin of “victory” in Ohio in 2004. I can’t believe that Kerry would have conceded the election so quickly if the number of uncounted provisional ballots was greater than his margin of victory. And if anyone does concede a presidential election when the number of uncounted provisional ballots is greater than the margin of victory, that candidate doesn’t deserve to ever run for that office again. I’m just saying this because there may be a lot of Ohioans voting by provisional ballot this year, and everyone should realize that voting by provisional ballot, though not ideal, is a hell of a lot better than not voting at all.

One last thing
The last thing I want to say is that, all of this taken together makes me very suspicious of what’s going on in Ohio this year – but I don’t know what to do about it. This may take a bunch of lawyers and some people connected with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office to get to the bottom of this. We certainly don’t want a repetition of 2004.