Bush stole Ohio through absentee ballots

In Ohio the republicans sent out absentee ballots to all republicans, whether they requested one or not. The law in Ohio is that you have to be 65, infirm or out of the county on election day. Once you request an absentee ballot, the BoE puts an "absentee" stamp next to your name, so you can't vote at the precinct. It says on the absentee ballot that if you receive one you can't go to the polls. A friend of mine (a republican) received an absentee and was upset because she wanted to go to the polls and vote. She called our BoE and they told her that she could still vote. It wasn't marked on the books that all of the reps recieved absentee ballots. (I know I was there challenging) I also have a friend who had moved counties and received an absentee ballot that was addressed to go back to her old county. She could have filled it out and still gone to her new county. Someone else posted that they live in another state and received the absentee for Ohio, could have easily voted twice. These people knowingly addressed these absentee ballots to people outside their county. If only 5% of the people double voted, that is Bush's lead. If enough people voted absentee out of laziness and not because of the three requirements, that would explain why the exit polls were off. Reps voted from home, Dems voted in the polls. They counted the absentee ballots Tues night with the rest of the ballots. My precinct had 68 absentee ballots counted- doesn't that seem very high? (760 people voted). I'm not discounting the machine fraud but this is one way I think they did it.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Because when you vote in person in OH, you sign in the book next to your name. Also, you sign your absentee ballot's envelope. So, if anybody voted twice, that can be found out.

the state went insane for Bush. All things adding up to substantial Kerry win had the election been fair. In Florida, adding up the known fraud with things like yours ignored(they didn't even think much about the optiscan"spoilage)) Gore won more than handily.

The sad after-math of this election will show that Kerry was the clear will of the Ohio voter, denied legality and fairness.

Of course, the proudest protestor of that fact right now is the Kerry campaign. Only the tragedy of the American citizenry will be rememebered.

Wonderful. Not surprising, though. Nothing surprises me anymore, I'm afraid.

My husband and sister both received absentee ballots from the GOP. They never requested these both went to the polls and voted Kerry. You might be on to something here!

funky exit poll numbers.

Tell them to keep them!

We needed to give equal attention to the touchscreen AND coordinating absentee ballots in one county, with votes in another.

If people received an absentee ballot they should be blocked from voting at the polling place. So, unless there was a conspiracy with election officials, people, presumably mostly Repubs, who received unwanted absentee ballots in the mail couldn't vote at polling place.

OTOH, if they just got an absentee ballot request, they'd still have a choice.

If election officials allow people both by absentee ballot and also by polling-place ballot, then those officials should be charged with fraud.

Absentee ballots do provide many opportunities for fraud, such as the late 90's fraud in the Miami, Florida mayoral race. The winner, a Repub, was removed from office by a judge who threw out all of the absentee ballots because of fraud.

request an absentee ballot and they should have to provide a valid reason for needing it. The voter rolls should not be in the hands of a single political party. The rolls need to be available to all political parties involved in the election. They should be able to see who is registered to vote using an absentee ballot and who is registered to vote "at the polls".

You may vote absentee ballot if…
you will be absent from the County on Election Day
you are 62 years of age or older
you are a full-time firefighter, peace officer or provider of emergency medical services
you or a family member will be hospitalized on Election Day
you have a physical illness or personal disability
you cannot vote on Election Day because of a religious belief
you will be in jail for a misdemeanor or awaiting trial
you are an election official or board of elections employee
you are on active duty in the state with an organized militia

You may request an Absentee Ballot by…
completing an Absentee Ballot Application and mailing it to the Board of Elections
calling the Board of Elections and requesting an Absentee Ballot Application to be mailed to you
mailing or faxing a letter to the Board of Elections with the following information:
your name and address and where you are registered to vote
your reason for requesting an absentee ballot
your party choice for a Primary Election or if you want an issues-only ballot
the mailing address where you want your ballot sent
your signature as it appears on your voter registration card
your phone number (including area code)

You may return your absentee ballot to the Board of Elections by:
mailing it to the Board of Elections for your county
hand-delivering by you or a relative to the Board of Elections office
Your absentee ballot must be received by the Board of Elections for your county before 7:30 PM on Election Day to be counted!

is what was actually sent - was it the form requesting an absentee ballot or the actual ballot?

And if it was the ballot, where the hell did they get them to send?

In Ohio, it's a two-step process to vote absentee. You have to fill out a form, with one of the reasons checked, mail it back, and only then are you sent an absentee ballot. Or you have to go, in person, to the BOE and apply for one. It's a two step process because OH has qualifications for using absentee ballots.

So, two things:

Any absentee ballots sent without the prior qualifying form would
be invalid. Repeat, there are legal limits to who can vote absentee -if those reasons are not on file, via the request-for-a-ballot form, they are not complying with the law.

Second, IF they sent actual ballots, where the hell did the Republicans get 'em? These are not just some kind of form you can photocopy or have printed - they were real ballots.

eileen from OH

BBV, DNC, etc?

(edited to make sense, sorry!)

from an ohio newspaper report:

"For weeks, the Ohio Republican Party has been mailing voters absentee ballot applications, sometimes followed by a recorded phone message from President Bush. The Democrats recently followed suit with their own absentee mailings"

Here in maine, there is also a two step process, but no restrictions on who can vote absentee. you must first fill out the application and then the actual ballot is sent to you. Both parties here legally sent or handed out the applications for absentte ballots, then the ballots were sent directly to the voter, or could be picked up at town offices. It's important before this goes further to know whether the forms sent out in Ohio were actual ballots, or just applications and what the rules are regarding the process. if the repukes sent out actual ballots, that's much more serious than the applications. do we have evidence?

we will find a number of people double voting. How do you coordinate this kind of thing county by county? One county has no idea who is registered in the next. It's all up to the voter to just vote once. But what if the voter doesn't realize that he's getting an absentee ballot from his old county? He signs it and sends it in. And then he gets calls on election day from Republican activist from his current county and they convince him that there is no record of an absentee ballot in that county. Which of course, there wouldn't be. Thus, there may be a number of Republicans voting twice?

received absentee ballots whenb they did not even request them...

It's important to keep in mind that the absentee ballots have not yet been counted in Ohio, so the totals we see now are without provisional and absentee.

have been counted already. The ones that have not been counted are just the overseas military ballots according to the media. I think civilian absentee ballots need to be returned by election day while military ballots have until November 12th to arrive.

I do think this whole thread is a very interesting new development though!

its interesting that the official line is that provisional and absentee's have not yet been counted, when it sounds like many absentees have already.. hmmm..suspicious

The precinct I worked in had 68 absentee counted

sounds like they counted all the absentee ballots that were recieved by election day- and the overseas ballots are counted 10 days after the election to allow time for them to be mailed- is that right?

or were the 68 ballots from random places within the county/state?

I'm still trying to figure out this:

REGISTERED VOTERS - BEACHWOOD 9943
BALLOTS CAST BEACHWOOD 13939

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm#0531

When they got rid of this forum. There are freepers talking in it there so it is pretty interesting if you want to check it out.

voted in two different counties??

This needs to be WAY UP HIGH on the list for each state to do!! If these absentee....or even "provisional" ballots, show someone voted in two different counties, we need a total AUDIT of the election.. not just a recount!

Can someone do some spot audits on some of these counties to double-check??

:kick::kick:

HALF of the posts are missing, including mine and Lizzie's reply to me - yet I can see it and the other missing post when I go to "my posts."

they changed the forum page and took off the Presidentail results forum. I didn't know what was going on so I posted it again under the Discussion politics page. So there are now two identical posts now that they have brought back the Presidential results page. I am so sorry for the confusion.

it will be pretty easy to spot and not a likely avenue of cheating, UNLESS they created entire new regsitrations.

Unless I completely misunderstand the nature of the counting process in Ohio surely someone would pick up if this were happening in large numbers, there must be sufficient documentation to spot this? - Democrats are involved in the election counting administration too aren't they?

If it can be shown that GOP operatives were widespread in sending in third party requests for absentee ballots for people who were not entitled to them, it should invalidate the entire vote in Ohio.

Your argument for it as the cause of the exit poll discrepancy makes a lot of sense. Even if the exit polls were adjusted for a normal level of absentee voting, they would not account for levels associated with voting fraud.

itself, will lead to a recount? Or, is this a theory/explanation that could be brought to Ohio? I'm confused. :(

he wouldn't be able to vote after sending in the absentee ballot? Why would he show up at the polls after sending one in? Seems like it would be a wasted trip. Obviously there would be no way of knowing that he WOULD be allowed to vote. So this idea seems very unlikely

too many would have to know about it, to make any kind of impact

disappear. This was talked about briefly on another thread last night. If we could somehow audit a county or two to see if there is a percentage of voters that did this, officials would then have to take a look at all counties.

and as I say above total votes would exceed ALL registrants by obvious amounts.

I appreciate your feedback. It seems form other posts that not everyone got an absentee ballot in the mail. Just coincidentally everyone that I talked to in several counties. Several people have been told about it so I am sure that if it is something, it will be investigated. Thanks again everyone

See Palast's coverage from today at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45933