Kerry Votes Converted to Bush in Ohio

Hope this is not a dupe.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/15246/5202

Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

Countless other frauds occurred, such as postcards advising people of incorrect polling places, registered Democrats not receiving absentee ballots, duly registered young voters being forced to file provisional ballots even though their names and signatures appeared in the voting rolls, longtime active voting registered voters being told they weren't registered, bad faith challenges by Republican "challengers" in Democratic precincts, and on and on and on.

I was very proud of the way so many Ohioans fought so valiantly for their right to vote, and would not be turned away. Many, however, could not spend the entire day and were afraid of losing their jobs, due to the severe economic depression hitting Ohio.

I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to be counted.

:wtf:

People in Travis County, Texas said the electronic voting machines were selecting Bush after they had selected straight party Democratic vote. Here in Tarrant County, I noticed something similar. The cause was the fact that after voting straight party ticket, the voter can selectively change votes by highlighting a race and toggling through the candidates for that race before locking the vote in. The default race that is highlighted was the presidency, so if someone carelessly toggled (or hit the wrong button trying to enter their vote), the selection would toggle over to Bush from Kerry.

In Travis County they labeled this "voter error" and not a mistake by the machine. While this is technically correct, it is kind of easy to mess with the selection of the first race on the ticket without really trying.

Caveat Voter.

Either did not have the will to make the calls on that or was bought off.

Maybe Kerry didn't know anything about software and nobody ever told him that one line of code is enough to decide the output of a voting machine, no matter how many fingers were used for input.
But now, you don't even have to know that.

There are a lot of unanswered questions.

Computer whizzes tell me that code can be written that can change the vote and then erase itself after making the vote change. It is very easy to do and in fact teen agers or anyone who can write simple computer code can do this.

The whole election in Ohio and Florida should have been contested and rerun -- using paper ballots.

But that would be a sane and logical world and we don't live in the real world anymore -- we have entered bushies very own fantasy world -- where up is down, night is day, black is white, good is bad, and bad is good, right is wrong and wrong is right.

Oh and god speaks only to bush -- not to Falwell.

Did I miss anything?

And it wasn't inexplicable. Blackwell intended to steal the election for Bush and he did.

AND NOBODY STOPPED HIM. That's the inexplicable part.

"I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to be counted."

We really deserve an answer to this question -- because we know logically that people do NOT vote in huge numbers and wait in long lines to keep the status quo.

We should not stop questioning and demanding that every single vote be counted in every single state PLUS the overseas vote and the absentee vote and the provisional ballots.

ALL VOTES MUST BE COUNTED.

If Ohio were recounted and the results were in Kerry's favor (and I think they would be) there would still be the popular vote deficit. You know how upset we dems were about the 1/2 million difference in 2000. Just imagine the outrage of Rush-addled morans to a 3 million deficit. They would never accept Kerry as President and things would get ugly. Sorry, but that's what I think.

They couldn't get worse and a nation stalled in the middle of an election dispute would be an improvement over what I see now with the strutting Chimp claiming a mandate. I will never see America with the same eyes again.

Daily Kos is a respected blogger. HE his often quoted on Slate/MSN politcial site. I read Kos before I found DU.

It's out there!! FRAUD in Ohio.
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Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

**********************************

Don't fucking tell me it's raining when the sun is in my eyes.

Don't give up on Democracy!

"I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to be counted."

I also didn't understand as Kerry annouced he was part of the same secret society as Bush.

Check my post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x21754

Hope this is not a dupe.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/15246/5202

Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

The idea that this is a case of fraud is just stupid.

If someone were going to change your vote, THEY WOULDN'T SHOW YOU THE CHANGE ON THE SCREEN. That's completely dumb. What they would do is just let you assume your vote was registered properly, but then give the vote to someone else. This information is stored internally. There is no reason in the world to show you any change at all.

The logical explanation is simple mis-calibration of the display. It happens constantly with touch screens and would cause the exact problem reported.

It sure would be interesting if there was a way to check this like with a PAPER trail.

but this sure would not increase my confidence in the integrity of computer voting.

Why was the machine kept in operation all day in that condition? Could they not have gotten a technician in to do a minor adjustment of the display calibration?

It doesn't matter whether the votes were lost through fraud or error if they were still lost. And if the display was miscalibrated, how could voters be sure that the area of the screen they were pressing were interpreted by the machine as Kerry votes or Bush votes.

Besides, it depends on how you define "fraud". Is it fraud to have too few voting machines in minority neighborhoods and plenty in well-to-do neighborhoods? After all, that's out in the open too. So are punch cards that get spoiled easily.

No matter how it happened, it probably resulted in many Kerry votes going for Bush. And if it was fraud, maybe it wasn't so "stupid" after all since it seems to have accomplished exactly what they would have wanted. Maybe it was just easier to rig the machines in that manner.

but the author fails to understand 2 things.

1. Provisional ballots are being tallied
2. Kerry's concession is not legally binding

:hi:

That's the law.

many precincts made up largely of minority voters used old, decrepit punch cards - the kind that create over and undervotes that can easily be tossed. Blackwell's office will not release the statewide over and under vote tallies. We'll never know how many ballots were tossed until someone challenges this thing.

fall into two categories:
Person was at the wrong place and tried to vote
Person was at the right place and no record of him being registered there.

Ohio law requires the person "voter" to prove his elibility to vote at that place within 48 hours or the provisional doesn't count.

In the OH primaries, up to 80% of the provisionals were determined to be null and void because:
Person didn't prove they were who they were, insufficient docs
Person didn't come back to prove they were registered to vote.

It will be tough to get 150,000 Kerry votes on those odds...

Oh well.

"Provisionals that are being counted fall into two categories:
Person was at the wrong place and tried to vote"

At both polling places I went to, there were signs up saying votes would only be counted if they were cast at the right precinct. Including provisional ballots. Isn't the whole point of a provisional ballot to provide access to voting for someone who's hopelessly at the wrong place? Sounds like an excuse to ditch more votes....

A lot of the provisional ballots will be 'looked at' but not 'counted'. This is a deliberate flaw in HAVA. Every ballot has to be looked at. The first decision then is whether to 'keep' it or to, for a variety of reasons, to 'discard' it. Then the 'kept' ballots are 'counted'.

HAVA is very screwy and manipulative. NO ONE should ever vote a provisional ballot. Swear out an oath that you are a legal resident of the precinct and eleigible to vote and make them let you vote a normal vote.

In Mahoning County, where Youngstown is located, the final tally was 81K for Kerry, 48K for Bush. In 2000, it was 68K for Gore, 40K for Bush. It would seem that, as in Ohio in general, both sides got their people out. If you've got a precinct-by-precinct breakdown, I'd be glad to pore over it.

a precinct by precinct breakdown. A friend of mine just found the article on Daily Kos.

Somehow it reminds me of the butterfly ballot in Florida. It was possible to get it right, but confusing enough that many mistakes were made. With this switch (and I don't know if it was visible on screen or ascertained in another way by poll workers), one could vote for Kerry and it could switch to Bush, but the vote could be mistakenly cast by a hand that was going faster than the voter's eyes. That is, possible to get it right, but confusing enough for many mistakes to be made.

OK. We here at DU sense a rat but 50% of the country will consider us loony. We need a thorough investigation by someone who has the means and connections.

No matter which method a fraud was used there has to be many people in on the secret and some of those people will talk which could snowball into a Watergate Woodstein-like journey.

If someone can prove it in Ohio this could dog * into a very awkward position.

But the Democrats smear campaign against Ralph Nader probably alienated the one guy who due to his years of consumer/public rights work has the connections, willpower and brains to bust something like this open.

Thanks! I haven't had a good laugh since this thing started.

:eyes:

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