In August 05, Jean Schmidt “won” a special election in Ohio for Congress. That event allowed her to expel her venom at a fine man. It’s worth looking at that election. The article3 below was published on 08/28/05. It was stimulated by work of adolfo, TruthIsAll, eomer, garybeck, tommcintyre and other DUers did on the strange numbers and occurrences in the “known for strange elections” Clermont County. THIS IS HOW SCHMIDT GOT THERE. AT THIS POINT, I’M SURE HACKETT ACTUALLY WON. See what you think.. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00186.htm The Veteran Of Fallujah Defeated By OH's HumidityTuesday, 23 August 2005, 10:54 pm
DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN?
DEMOCRAT HACKETT LOSES A SQUEAKER IN
OHIO’S 2nd CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT:
THE NEW VOTING RIGHTS STRUGGLE 2004-2005
Tuesday, 23 August 2005, 10:54 pm
by autorank
DemocraticUnderground.Com <snip>
Hackett greets fellow vet former Sen. Max Cleland, D, GA.
Cleland was injured in Viet Nam. Cleland lost a questionable
Senate election in Georgia in 2002.
Hackett emerges as a threat.The Democratic Party started out with little hope of winning, yet the race became competitive. Charles Sanders had never topped 28% in four tries against Portman. This election was different, with the Republicans absent the benefit of incumbency. As a veteran Cincinnati Enquirer reporter said prophetically on May 26, the Democrats saw “a faint crack of light through a door that may not open again for many years if they do not field the strongest possible candidate.” Hackett was viewed by both the leadership and party voters as that type of candidate. He had won a five-person primary with 56% of the vote in his first major political outing (he served on a town council previously).
Hackett runs a strong campaign.Hackett had three major advantages that many Democratic candidates lack. He had just finished an active duty tour in the military, he aggressively engages in intense political combat without flinching, and he has a concealed weapons carry permit. In addition to that, he opposes the war in Iraq with firsthand knowledge, is strong on national security, and has harsh comments for his Republican opponents. In a Cincinnati Post statement, Hackett said of Schmidt, “If you think America needs another career politician steeped in a culture of corruption who does as she’s told and toes the line on failed policies, then I’m not your candidate.” He referred to Schmidt as a “rubber stamp” Republican. He called Republican supporters of the war “chicken hawks” and he was harshly critical of President Bush. Just before the election, Hackett said of Bush, “I don’t like the son of a bitch who lives in the White House but I’ll put my life on the line for him.”
Hackett raised significant funds locally and from Internet activist Democrats…
The humidity crisis.Then it happened: the “humidity” crisis. For pure drama, it could not have occurred at a more dramatic point in the vote tabulation. Of Clermont County’s 191 precincts, 100 had been counted. Then the Board of Elections announced that excessive humidity had caused ballots to swell, making them difficult to count. As a result, there would be a delay in the count. At this point, the election was dead even statistically, at 50% for each candidate. The 91 precincts in Clermont represented about 12% of the remaining vote. When the crisis was resolved, the 50-50% tie changed into a 52% to 48% victory for Schmidt.
<snip>
Questions not asked about the vote count stoppage.The sudden stoppage of vote tabulation in Clermont was reminiscent of nearby Warren County’s Board of Elections citizen-media lockout during vote counting in 2004, which county officials claimed to be the result of a Homeland Security alert. There was no alert.
Was humidity the reason the optical scanning machine count stopped in Clermont, or was there some “intelligent design?” Humidity can impact the ability of optical scan counting machines to process paper ballots. It is not frequently reported and there are clear instructions providing easy remedies (e.g. air condition polling and tabulation facilities). The state of Louisiana made its 2003 RFP for voting machines contingent on tolerating a 98% humidity rate, for example. Air conditioning is reported to be widely available in Clermont County, as are dehumidifiers.
Why were 91 precincts impacted while 100 others were not in the same County?Information about the locations of the humidity-impacted districts is unavailable. Was each of the 91 precincts without air conditioning? That would be a 48% rate of precincts exposed to conditions that the Board had to know could create problems. For them to announce problems with ballots due to humidity after the fact is remarkable. Certainly, they knew that humidity could be an issue. Just days before the special election there were extensive reports of a serious heat and humidity wave in the Cincinnati area. The regions largest newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer had been talking about the heat and humidity days before the election. Surely humidity on Election Day should have been taken into account.
Was there a one-to-one match between precincts with “humidified” ballots and precincts without air conditioning?If so, why were nearly half of the precincts exposed to humidification? And if this is not so, if some of the 91 precincts with ballot problems due to humidity had air conditioning and some did not, how does the Board explain humidity problems in precincts with air conditioning?
Was Clermont the only part of the 2nd District that was affected by humidity that day and if so, why? Clermont used optical scan paper ballots. Five other counties used punch card paper ballots, which have a similar or greater vulnerability to expansion or distortion due to humidity. There were no reports of problems in those five counties related to humidity. What is the critical variable that makes Clermont ballots vulnerable to distortion due to excessive moisture? Were precincts all air conditioned in the five counties that used punch card paper ballots? Was there something like an intense thermal inversion going on above the 91 precincts in Clermont County?
Why did the Board of Elections allow precincts to operate that lacked sufficient air conditioning to prevent humidity?These questions need to be answered given the prior questions raised and documented about Clermont. The Board of Elections operates all year round. There is sufficient time to study manuals, attend vendor-sponsored retreats, and talk to nearby officials. Nearly half of the Clermont precincts had humidified ballots. A failure rate of nearly 50% is totally unacceptable performance for an election and offers the most unflattering commentary on those who are supposed to run it efficiently.
Precincts with the most votes favored Schmidt at nearly 100%, with Hackett winning in only those with less than 200 votes counted.A review of precinct level results by TruthIsAll on DemocraticUnderground reveals this interesting trend. This data is preliminary and more detail needs to be obtained from the Clermont Board of Elections. However, the trend observed for Clermont makes little sense on the face of it.
Hackett won 38 of 191 Clermont precincts with fewer than 187 votes, but lost ALL of the largest 54 precincts (those with more than 187 votes each). This is reflected in the following graph produced by DemocraticUnderground poster TruthIsAll on of the first election fraud analysts to notice anomalies in Clermont County.
Graph: Hackett won 38 of 191 Clermont precincts but lost ALL of the 54 largest
The following percentages help elaborate the graph above.
Hackett’s percentage by precinct group size:
46.9% in precincts under 100 votes
43.5% in precincts of 100-200 votes
39.6% in precincts of 200-300 votes
34.6% in precincts of 300 + votesThese results raise interesting questions. Why does Hackett do much better in the smaller precincts? Are they more rural than the larger precincts? If so, does this not present a counterintuitive pattern, with the Democrat taking some of the conservative, less populated areas and the Republican winning all of the precincts in the most populated areas?
The following graph, also produced by TruthIsAll, answers the question. As he said while commenting on this data on 8/5/05: “The regression line has zero slope. Voters turned out at a fairly constant rate across precincts. So turnout wasn't a factor in explaining why the Schmidt vote percentage increased as precinct size increased.
”
Graph: No Correlation between Precinct Registration and Voter Turnout
(The article goes on to show Hackett won the most rural precincts by 60-40% and should have carried more populated areas or at least broken even. The last four elections, no Democrat broke 30%! Hackett was on a roll, until the infamous Clermont & Warren Counties pulled it out for Schmidt.)