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2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities

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Introduction

After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. Unofficial results currently indicate a victory for George W. Bush over John Kerry. The allegations range from significant exit poll and other data irregularities potentially characteristic of fraud, to complaints voting was not conducted equally for all citizens, for example, uneven voting machine distribution which might lead to long voting lines and disenfranchisement.

Groups and individuals currently compiling, analysing and investigating allegations of irregularities in the 2004 Election include Ralph Nader (independent), David Cobb (Green), Michael Badnarik (Libertarian), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, well known investigative organizations such as BlackBoxVoting.ORG, Kerry's brother and legal advisor Cameron Kerry, members of the House Judiciary Committee, minority interest leaders such as Jesse Jackson, PhD's and Professorial academics, computer security specialists, and citizen bloggers.

Over 38,000 incidents have been reported in the 2004 Election (comprising a range of minor errors through to large scale direct voter intimidation, mishandled absentee and provisional ballots, malfunctioning or inaccurate machines and/or apparent hacking and vote tampering) (Source [1] description of incidents [2]).

The controversies and irregularities reported in the 2004 Election include ongoing recount efforts, statistical and data analyses of poll and final vote tallies, the performance of and adequate access to voting machines, allegations of voter suppression, registration and voting problems, voting machine manufacturer and testing issues, tabulation or procedural errors, and claims of official malfeasance, among others.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Controversial or irregular aspects of the 2004 election

2.1 Voting machines and vendor issues
2.2 Exit polls
2.3 Vote suppression
2.4 Racial discrimination and other bias
2.5 International election monitoring
2.6 Other controversies
2.7 Recount efforts

3 Official viewpoints, investigations and legal actions

3.1 Individuals and Organizations in Ohio
3.2 State and Federal government agencies

3.2.1 U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
3.2.2 Government Accountabilty Office
3.2.3 California State Voting Panel and State Department

3.3 Special Interest and fair Voting bodies

3.3.1 Blackboxvoting.ORG
3.3.2 Electronic Frontier Foundation
3.3.3 The Election Protection Coalition
3.3.4 Lynn Landes' investigation of AP exit polls reporting
3.3.5 Verified Voting and trueMajority campaigns

3.4 Candidates and political parties

3.4.1 Democratic Party
3.4.2 Green Party
3.4.3 Libertarian Party
3.4.4 Ralph Nader
3.4.5 Republican Party

4 See also
5 External links

5.1 Useful sources for data
5.2 Organizations
5.3 People and Companies Involved
5.4 Other
5.5 In the news

5.5.1 November 2004
5.5.2 December 2004


Controversial or irregular aspects of the 2004 election

After the November 2, 2004 election in the United States, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote (and no one else), and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the presidential election, in which the incumbent, Republican President George W. Bush, defeated the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. There was generally less attention paid to the Senate and House elections and to various state races, but some of them were also questioned.

Kerry himself conceded the presidential election to Bush on November 3. Some of his supporters criticized him for doing so, arguing that Bush's apparent win in Ohio was so narrow that it might be reversed if improprieties were corrected and the still-uncounted provisional ballots were largely in Kerry's favor. Although there will probably be a recount in Ohio, some of the alleged improprieties in the election cannot be addressed by a recount, and few observers expect the recount to change the 2004 result. There is, however, an ongoing debate about possible changes for future elections.

Among the issues raised in 2004 were allegations or complaints regarding:

"...[they] wanted to know if [the company] could develop a prototype of a voting program that could alter the vote tabulation in an election and be undetectable ... She immediately stated, 'You don't understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This program is needed to control the vote tn South Florida'..." [3]

In addition, a number of recounts have been requested and initiated throughout the U.S. in various states.

Voting machines and vendor issues

Main article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines

Before 2004, the increasing use of electronic voting machines had raised several issues:

  • Software. An electronic voting machine could produce an incorrect report of the votes if its software contains a bug that causes such a malfunction or leaves the machine vulnerable to deliberate manipulation. Government agencies buying the machines were often denied access to the software by the manufacturer. Even when the software was available for review, there were concerns that the agencies lacked the technical expertise to find problems or to monitor changes to the software.
  • Voter verification. A voter using a paper ballot, a punch-card ballot, or an older lever-type voting machine has much greater ability to ensure that his or her vote has been recorded accurately.
  • Recounts. A recount of an electronic voting machine is not a recount in the traditional sense. The machine will simply re-report the same total.
  • Partisan ties. The senior executives of each of the top 3 voting machine companies (ES&S, Diebold and Sequoia, accounting for over 90% of voting machines in use) have strong Republican or conservative ties - key management or funders of all three are significant Republican fund raisers and donors, and CEOs or other high officers of at least two went directly on to stand as Republicans, and won with unheard of swings never before achieved for the states they stood in.
  • Industry practices. Collusion, cross ownership, criminal history of management and parent or associated companies, including bid-rigging convictions and bribery in other state contracts by affiliates

The 2004 election brought new attention to these issues. In particular, many critics of electronic voting machines pointed to widespread discrepancies between exit polls conducted during Election Day and the officially reported results. They argued that the official results were more favorable to Bush than were the polls, and that these discrepancies were more likely to arise where electronic voting machines were in use and/or in swing states. They concluded that the exit polls showing a Kerry victory were probably correct and that the official totals from the machines were wrong. Expert opinion was divided concerning what implications should be drawn from the cited discrepancies.

The reliability and accuracy of electronic voting machines has not been established. In most cases machines were designed without capability for paper trail or auditability, and cited expert computer scientists state that these machines had a very high potential to be tampered with, citing such possibilities as the machines being reprogrammed on Election Day, fundamental design flaws, gaps in security logs and the like. The election incident reporting system (EIRS) has received many reports from voters and election officials of votes for Kerry being recorded as votes for Bush. Without a paper audit trail, if there is a doubt as to whether the machine has accurately represented and counted votes there is no way to independently verify the results. [4] Because of this, some encourage the use of open-architecture voting machines which render the process transparent.

At least one voting machine began counting back down to zero when it reached 32000 votes; manufacturer ES&S are said to have known about (but not rectified) this issue for two years since the same problem had arisen in a previous mayoral election. (Broward Co., FL) [5]

Internal emails from voting machine manufacturers from 2001 and formal certification reports of those voting machines shows that the manufacturers concealed even basic security issues since that time. The certifying company (Ciber Inc) recommended the machines as passing certification in both of two sample cases without in fact testing core firmware, and without attempting to verify any of the crucial security aspects of the voting machines. (See 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines#Certification of voting machines.) Internal emails at the manufacturers stated that they do not password protect the voting data files so that these can be manually edited, adding that "I know our dealers do it. King County is famous for it" and (regarding Federal Certification) "if you don't bring this up you might skate through ...". These positions were justified by saying that "perception is reality". (See 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines#BlackBoxVoting.org investigations for details.) (Side note - King County is also the location referred to above where 3 hours of security audit data is missing from the WA Primary in Sept 2004).

Unless exceptionally well designed, computers can be "cracked" and manipulated in an undetectable manner by experts (See 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines#Expert testimony on quality of current voting machines.)

Vendor issues include: close affiliations with political parties, links to organized crime and affiliations within the industry (the owners of two main companies are brothers,) together with documentation and litigation suggesting that companies colluded.

Company owners and high-placed employees had multiple prior convictions including bans for bid-rigging, embezzlement and drug trafficking, [6] [7] and at least one knew for some years (and had deceived the public) about the full extent of lack of security. They also knowingly breached the law regarding voting machines, attempted to collude to "eliminate side attacks" and "criticism ... of fallibility" from "computer scientists and security experts" and "other people" who were "somewhat credible." In addition they attempted to establish an 'unconnected' and deniable PR group to manipulate official perception.

The Senior Vice President of one voting machine company who wrote and maintained thousands of lines of voting machine code was found to have previously "served time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning."[8] An ex-employee of one company reported routinely installing uncertified and untested versions of software on touchscreen machines [9]

Increasing evidence of incidents where untoward modification to voting machines took place has led to the companies themselves coming under examination for their various political and economic ties.

"[E]ven if the election were viewed as "successful," it would not alleviate the vast majority of my concerns with the machines. Voting machines that are vulnerable to wholesale rigging can still perform perfectly normally. It is possible that nobody exploited the vulnerabilities this time around, and it is also possible that there was fraud or serious error, but that they went undetected. Electronic voting will be judged on the noticeable failures, and the unnoticeable ones are the most serious." - Aviel D. Rubin [10]
 

Exit polls

Main article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls

Exit polls have been used in other countries to attempt to check for election fraud. For example, in the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004 exit polls showed 59 percent in favor of the recall, while the official tally showed only 42 percent in favor. [11] This discrepancy of 17 percent is larger than claimed for the 2004 US election. International observers nonetheless endorsed the Venezuelan result. [12] Similarly, the campaign of Mexican President Vicente Fox used exit polling to ensure that the ruling opposition party conducted the election fairly. The "parallel vote tabulation" [13] is also expected to be a key factor in resolving problems with the Ukrainian_presidential_election,_2004 in which the US and other nations are alleging serious election fraud. Other groups dismiss exit polls as unreliable.

Because final published exit polls in America are matched to vote counts, they cannot be used to determine election fraud. However, in the 2004 election, pre-matched exit polls were leaked onto the internet. The exit poll results of one major consortium of news organizations, the National Election Pool ("NEP"), were based on interviews with voters in 49 states (omitting Oregon because its system of voting by mail eliminated the traditional polling place). The NEP results available during the day on Election Day showed Kerry leading Bush. These discrepancies led to charges that the exit polls were more accurate than the official counts, for various reasons. The co-director of NEP, Warren Mitofsky, said he suspected that the difference arose because "the Kerry voters were more anxious to participate in our exit polls than the Bush voters." [14]. Other academic analysts conclude that such explanations are poorly supported.

Dec. 3 - NBC announces that it has studied the discrepancy between exit poll figures for Latino votes from the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI) and NEP (Edison/Mitofsky). They now believe WCVI's figures were more accurate and that NEP under-represented urban areas (leaning Democratic) and over-represented non-urban areas (leaning Republican). NBC has therefore adjusted its figures and believes that in fact Kerry had 58% not 53% of the popular Latino vote and Bush has 40% and not 44% as previously stated. They also revised NBC's estimate for Hispanic support in Bush's home state of Texas, revising a reported 18-point lead for Bush to a 2-point win for Kerry among Hispanics, a "remarkable" 20-point turnaround from figures reported on election night.

There has been untoward significant disagreement between exit poll data and actual results, especially in swing states (apparently not matched by similar discrepancies in most non-swing states or other election matters). Critical analyses of the data has ranged from exit poll statistical analysis to researching data released inadvertently by voting machine vendor Diebold Election Systems. Other data has been obtained from official records or freedom of information requests. A preliminary report by professors at CalTech stating that there is no evidence of discrepancies was strongly challenged as having serious methodological errors [15]. A second, more rigorous working paper [16] from Steven Freeman, a visiting faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania with a PhD in Organizational Studies from MIT's Sloan School of Management calculated that the odds of the difference between exit polls and actual vote counts being due to chance is less than 1 in 600,000. This paper is a raw analysis and does not attempt to determine the source of the discrepancies. A third paper by Michael Hout, a sociology professor at the UC Berkeley, along with three of his graduate students, allowed for many economic, political, ethnic patterns and past voting tendencies, and concluded "No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration ... the data show with 99.0% [sic, tested at 99% actual figure 99.9%] certainty that a county’s use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush". They calculated the Bush lead was overstated by 130,000 - 260,000 votes in Florida, where the official tally gives Bush a 380,978 vote win. However, this study has been strongly criticized by 2 professors as picking a statistical model that favored a predetermined outcome, despite the fact that other equally valid models produced different results. [17]

Vote suppression

Main article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, 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 described voter suppression in his state, Ohio:

Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registration through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout. Phone calls to voters giving them erroneous polling information were also common. [18]

Political parties generally pay lip service to the ideal of encouraging turnout. Occasionally, however, an incautious but revealing comment is publicized, as when a Republican state legislator in Michigan said, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle." [19]

In every election, some voters encounter practical impediments to voting, such as long lines at the polling place. In 2004, however, the issue received increased attention. In many places, some voters had to wait several hours to vote. Among the factors thought to be at work were: the general increase in voter turnout; a particular increase in first-time voters whose processing required more time; and confusion about the providing of provisional ballots, which many states had never used before.

In addition, some of the instances may have been caused, in whole or in part, by a form of voter suppression. Many previous elections have seen charges that a governing party allocated more voting machines or otherwise facilitated voting in areas where it was strong, while doing the opposite in the opposing party’s bastions. That issue arose again in 2004. There were also allegations of delays caused by such tactics as frequent challenges of voters, or even police roadblocks set up to impede access to certain polling places.

In addition, there were reports of problems with and controversy over electronic and optical-scan voting machines, many precincts reporting more voters than they had, or inexplicable numbers of votes cast, the fact the exit poll discrepancies only seemed to show up in swing states. Allocation of ballots and voting machines led to some disenfranchisement, particularly in high-population areas and in closely contested states. Other issues are the perception of a discrepancy between party registration statistics and results in some counties, and the varying and controversial procedures for counting provisional ballots.

Racial discrimination and other bias

Some of the issues described above have created problems for voters generally. Others, however, by accident or (it is charged) by design, have disproportionately affected racial minorities. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as “spoiled” were cast by African Americans, who were only 11 percent of the voters. [20] People for the American Way and the NAACP catalogued a number of voting problems with discriminatory impacts through early 2004 in this report, with a subsequent update.

The 2004 election continued the well-established 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 the Democrats. Beyond that factor, many Democrats alleged that other election-related problems affected their supporters more heavily. Some argued that, if the election had been conducted without improprieties, Kerry would have won the presidency. [21]

  • Specific concerns were raised in the course of the election in respect of votes from key minorities, such as blacks [22] or Cuban Hispanics.
  • There have been reports that efforts to challenge voters were targeted towards blacks, the 'challenge lists' apparently containing an overwhelming percentage of blacks relative to population [23], [24], [25], [26]. Jesse Jackson, prominent African-American activist and founder of the Rainbow Coalition, 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." [27],[28]</small>.
  • 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. Officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, were dispatched to investigate allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. Source: [29]
  • Florida 2004: in a repeat of the highly problematic "scrub list" of the 2000 election, the state ordered the implementation of a "potential felon" purge list to remove voters from the rolls. The state abandoned the plan after news media investigations revealed that the 2004 list also included thousands of people who were eligible to vote, and heavily targeted African-Americans while virtually ignoring Hispanic voters.[30]
  • Summer 2004: Michigan state Rep. John Pappageorge (R-Troy) was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election." African-Americans make up 83 per cent of Detroit's population. [31]
  • South Dakota, June 2004 primary: native American voters were prevented from voting after they were challenged to provide photo IDs, which they were not required to present under state or federal law. Source: [32],[33],[34]

International election monitoring

A small team of internation election monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were invited to monitor the election. The OSCE observers were granted access to polling stations in a number of states, however sometimes only in specific counties. They have released a preliminary statement (or see press release). As of 17th November they still have to release their full report. The monitors criticised partisan election officials and the long lines at polling places, but said that electronic voting machines generally seemed to work well.

Press comment by International Monitors:

"International monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures fell short in many ways of the best global practices. The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system. Two-member observer teams fanned out across 11 states and included citizens of 36 countries, ranging from Canada and Switzerland to Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Slovenia and Belarus."
As for electronic voting, Gould said he preferred Venezuela's system to the calculator-sized touch pads in Miami. "Each electronic vote in Venezuela also produces a ticket that voters then drop into a ballot box," Gould said. "Unlike fully electronic systems, this gives a backup that can be used to counter claims of massive fraud." The United States is also nearly unique in lacking a unified voter registration system or national identity card, Gould said, adding that he would ideally require U.S. voters to dip a finger in an ink bowl or have a cuticle stained black after voting. "In El Salvador, Namibia and so many other elections, the ink was extremely important in preventing challenges to multiple voting," Gould said. "In Afghanistan it didn't work so well, because they used the dipping ink for the cuticles, so it wiped right off."
(Source: International Herald Tribune [35])


Other controversies

There have been incidents of iregularity, 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 [36], [37], [38],[39],[40],[41], [42],[43] Some of these errors, although found and corrected, are noteworthy in their scope or root cause [44].

Please see the "In the news" section for a list of reports detailing reported irregularities and unresolved aspects of the election.

(1) One article [45] alleges that Democratic results were apparently withheld until Republican results had moved ahead:

"Kerry's results were deliberately withheld in order to create the illusion that he was actually losing. While Bush’s results came in thick and fast, Kerry's came in painfully slowly. Listening to the CBC's (Canadian Broadcasting Commission) election coverage, I found that Kerry was stuck for a long time on 112 electoral college votes while Bush’s total continued to rise. After what seemed an inordinately long time, Kerry's figures rose to 188, but only after Bush had gone to 200. Kerry then stayed on 188 while Bush climbed to 204, then 210, then 238! At no stage were results released in an order that would lend the least credibility to the idea of a Kerry victory. While Democrats agonized over the strategic delays, the Republicans turned on miracles in two states which at best looked like being extremely close, Florida and Ohio. In the case of Florida, the results from the most heavily Democratic counties came in last. By reporting only the results for the other counties, the illusion was created of a pro-Bush trend."

(2) Blackboxvoting.ORG 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.
  • Manipulating vote forecasting and calling races prematurely in the media, encouraging candidates to concede.

(3) There are suggestions that websites and newgroups related to fair voting groups or other interested parties may have been visibly hacked and disrupted. [46]

(4) In the 2000 election, especially in the disputed recounts in Florida, there were issues concerning the ambiguities and uncertainties that arose from punch-card ballots, such as the hanging chads (incompletely punched holes). 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 because of hanging chads. [47]

Recount efforts

After statements by Dennis White of the Ohio Democratic Party indicating that John Kerry would "participate" in the Ohio recount effort [48], the Kerry/Edwards campaign has filed a brief to formally join in legal proceedings to seek a recount of all Ohio votes for President [49], [50], initiated by David Cobb (Green) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian). This was necessary for the recount to have any practical effect since a federal judge had ruled the recount need not be expedited since the original plaintiffs (Cobb and Bardnarik) could not be positively affected by it's outcome.

A partial recount of New Hampshire optical scan ballots requested by Nader has begun and is progressing slowly. So far, 2 precincts have been recounted, turning up 3 additional votes for Bush and 6 additional votes for Kerry, out of slightly more than 10,000 votes recounted. [51] [52]

Recount requests were filed on November 29, 2004 by David Cobb (Green) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) for all presidential ballots cast in New Mexico and Nevada [53]. On December 2nd, the recount request in Nevada was cancelled. [54]

A parallel recount effort is being headed by Cliff Arnebeck of the Alliance for Democracy, representing a group of voters. On Wednesday Dec. 8th, he is expected to ask the courts to set aside the results and declare John Kerry the winner of Ohio, on the basis of widespread systematic election fraud that altered the outcome of the election, which he claims to have sufficient evidence to prove. Ohio law permits the state Supreme Court to review elections in such cases. [55]

Official viewpoints, investigations and legal actions

Image:2004_us_fraud6.jpg

Why recount Ohio?


Individuals and Organizations in Ohio

Read about Ohio election law in regards to recounts here.

Read House of Representatives Judicial Committee formal enquiry letter to Ohio Secretary of State Dec. 2 2004 here.

investigation statewide recount recusal of Blackwell legal action
Organizations        
GAO systemic N/A N/A N/A
Black Box Voting underway   endorse Freedom of Information Act requests
Common Cause collecting info pending petition Headed by Cliff Arnebeck
Alliance for Democracy collecting info pending endorse Headed by Cliff Arnebeck
Move On petition endorse endorse  
People for the American Way endorse endorse   provisional ballots
CASE Ohio endorse endorse    
National Voter Rights Institute   pending   Representing Cobb & Badnarik
U.S. House underway      
People        
David Cobb endorse pending   early recount, recount deadline, move case to federal court, against Blackwell
Michael Badnarik endorse pending   early recount, recount deadline, move case to federal court, against Blackwell
Dennis Kucinich endorse endorse    
Jesse Jackson (interview, video) endorse endorse, "set aside" current results endorse, removal  
Greg Palast endorse endorse    
John Kerry underway pending   petition, provisional ballots, join cobb/badnarik suit
*Cliff Arnebeck & Bob Fitrakis, representing a group of voters collecting info pending    

*Cliff Arnebeck is the Chair of Common Cause Ohio and a Co-Chair and attorney for the Alliance for Democracy.

State and Federal government agencies

Master list of Election-related litigation [56]

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary

The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary has requested an investigation by the GAO, asked Kenneth Blackwell for an explanation, and scheduled a Public Congressional Forum. The hearings are currently scheduled for Wednesday, December 8th @ 10:00am [57]. Among the many potential attendees and invitees are Jesse Jackson, Cliff Arnebeck, Ken Blackwell and Warren Mitofsky.


Press releases:

  • Blackwell asked to explain irregularities in Ohio (pdf)
  • Open congressional forum to be held on Dec. 8 (pdf)
    • Participation list and statements [58]
    • Interviews [59]
    • Video from C-SPAN (Real Player): rtsp://cspanrm.fplive.net/cspan/project/c04/c04120804_conyers.rm

Letters:

  • To Mitofsky, requesting raw data for election exit polls (pdf)
    • From Mitofsky, denying request (pdf)
  • To Kenneth Blackwell, concerning Ohio election irregularities (pdf)
  • To Kenneth Blackwell, concerning Ohio election irregularities, follow-up (pdf)

Government Accountabilty Office

The Government Accountability Office said it will investigate how the vote was counted in the Nov. 2 election, with an eye toward answering persistent questions about voting irregularities in many states, including Ohio and Florida, which were crucial to President Bush's win.

The irregularities include machines failing to record votes or recording them inaccurately, as well as problems with the way officials counted provisional ballots, which were provided to voters whose names didn't appear on voting lists but who contended they were eligible to participate in the election.

Congress' investigative agency cautioned, however, that it isn't authorized to take action if irregularities are found.

GAO spokeswoman Susan Becker said the investigation isn't a direct response to a recent request by several Democratic members of the House, who asked the GAO to investigate. The GAO was already planning to look at systemic issues related to the elections process after the Nov. 2. election. But given the concern expressed by more than a dozen members of Congress and many voters, the GAO will look at some of the specific problems reported. These include complaints by some voters who said they used touch-screen voting machines that recorded votes for candidates they didn't pick.

The GAO also will examine distribution and allocation of voting machines, since there have been reports in Ohio that some precincts didn't have enough machines to handle the number of people who turned out to vote. [60]

California State Voting Panel and State Department

Oct. 27, 2004 -- The state of California has ordered that 15,000 brand new touch-screen voting machines not be used in next week's presidential election. These electronic machines were manufactured by Diebold Inc., a North Canton, Ohio-based company that also specializes in automated teller machines and electronic security.
"Of course we would have wished the situation would not have happened, but it did," (Mark) Rapke told ABC News. "There was back up available. But again, with additional familiarity with the system, again, this problem would not have happened." But a former Diebold technical worker, James Dunn, told ABC News the company was aware of the software and electronic problems before the election, and never reported them. "The machine would lock up or lose its software load. A very uncommon thing and not a good thing," said Dunn. "And once that machine's locked up you're unable to produce voter cards, which means you're unable to open the election voting machine and people can't vote. But they shipped it anyway."
California election officials say there are serious flaws with the machines and that Diebold repeatedly misled the state about them. "[Diebold] literally engaged in absolutely deplorable behavior and, to that extent, put the election at risk, jeopardizing the outcome of the election," said California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. [61],[62]
"California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced recently that he will sue e-voting technology maker Diebold on charges that it defrauded the state with aggressive marketing and overstated claims, and sold the state poor-quality equipment that did not produce a paper trail and was full of security vulnerabilities ... The lawsuit is certainly less damaging than the alternative Diebold was facing: It also had been threatened with criminal charges related to this incident..." [63]
"By an 8-0 vote, the state's [California's] Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended that Shelley cease the use of the machines, saying that Texas-based Diebold [Diebold Election Systems, an affiliate of Diebold Inc, OH] has performed poorly in California and its machines malfunctioned in the state's March 2 primary election, turning away many voters in San Diego County."
"Panel member Marc Carrel, an assistant secretary of state, said he was 'disgusted' by Diebold, which has "been jerking us around." The company, he said, has disenfranchised voters in California and undermined confidence in the new and developing technology of touch-screen voting."
"A secretary of state's report on the March 2 elections found that 573 of 1,038 polling places in San Diego County failed to open on time because Diebold voting machines malfunctioned. Voters were told to go elsewhere or come back."
"California panel members ... cited a litany of alleged problems with Diebold in recent months, including its sale of machines to the four counties without federal and state certification, last-minute software fixes before the March election and installation of uncertified software in voting machines in 17 counties."
"In addition to the ban, panel members recommended that a secretary of state's office report ... be forwarded to the state attorney general's office to consider civil and criminal charges against the company."

Special Interest and fair Voting bodies

Blackboxvoting.ORG

source: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Nov 13:

  • Florida Black Box Voting has launched a fraud audit into Florida. Three investigators (Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson, and Kathleen Wynne) are in Florida right now requesting hand counts on selected counties that have not fully complied with blackboxvoting.org's Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request by Monday (Diebold counties) or Tuesday (other counties).
  • New Mexico Black Box Voting is implementing fraud diagnostics on the state of New Mexico. Information we recently received is indicative of widespread vote manipulation. Has yet to be publically released.
  • Georgia Indications of corrupt voting processes in specific county, with possible criminal actions by local officials.
  • Arizona Black Box Voting is launching a fraud investigation on Pima County Arizona.
  • Nevada Black Box Voting is launching a fraud investigation on the state of Nevada. Multiple irregularities.

Nov. 23:

Black Box Voting reported that a lawsuit has been filed in Volusia County, Florida for that county's 2004 election be set aside.

Nov. 29:

Bev Harris has filed a lawsuit against Palm Beach County, Florida Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore, accusing her of stonewalling requests for public records. [66]

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation contends that:

Electronic voting machines have "serious security problems that aren't being addressed. Most of the machines use "black box" software that hasn't been publicly reviewed for security. Almost none provide voter-verifiable paper ballots to detect fraud. A recent analysis by several academic researchers outlines the many and varied ways that anyone from a technically proficient insider to an average voter could disrupt an e-voting system to defraud an election"
They have filed numerous lawsuits concerning voting irregularities. Their most recent lawsuit against State of Louisiana elections officials alleged many low and moderate income citizens were denied the right to vote when polling places failed to open on time or provide enough provisional ballots.

The Election Protection Coalition

Hearings were held Saturday 13 November at the New Faith Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio (An additional hearing will be held Monday, November 15, 2004, 6-9 PM, in the Franklin County Court House, also in Columbus, Ohio). The hearings were organized by the Election Protection Coalition. The hearings allowed citizens to enter their concerns into the public record, for possible review by the Ohio State Legislature.

  • For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy. The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process. The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement. [...] Many of the voters who testified were clearly Democrats who wonder if their losing presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, was able to draw all the votes that were intended for him." [67]

Lynn Landes' investigation of AP exit polls reporting

Landes' investigation states that the AP is the "sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night" and that they have refused to explain where this information will be sourced, and "refused to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country."

She notes that if so, a remote computer could also access these same machines (the manufacturers already requested they not be connected during some elections, see above), that the manufacturers pride themselves on "accessibility" and that many of the AP executives have Republican ties and as a sole source may not be as non-partisan as is believed. (Source [68])

Another article on Associated Press [69] comments:

"Burl Osborne, chairman of the AP board of directors, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election. Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of AP, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News before joining AP. Carroll is also on the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME)’s 7-member executive committee. The APME "works in partnership with AP to improve the wire service's performance," according to their website. APME vice president, Deanna Sands, is managing editor of the ultra conservative Omaha World Herald newspaper, whose parent company owns the largest voting machine company in the nation, Election Systems and Software (ES&S)."

Verified Voting and trueMajority campaigns

VerifiedVoting.org:

Over a thousand computer scientists, academics, lawyers, elected officials and regular citizens have signed the group's resolution to require a voter paper trail.

Ben Cohen's (founder of Ben & Jerry's) "The Computer Ate My Vote" campaign:

Focussed on e-voting regulations at the state level because a bill before U.S. Congress to mandate a voter-verified paper trail has stalled. Notes that "The fledgling technology already has failed widely-publicized tests. One hacker was able to open a locked machine and start changing votes. It took him less than a minute. Another hacker was able to intercept and change vote totals being sent to headquarters." [70]

Source for both: Wired.com

Candidates and political parties

Democratic Party

  • Several Democratic members of the House Committee on the Judiciary have written to the GAO requesting a formal investigation. Their first letter was written three days after the election, on November 5 [71], and this was followed by a second letter on November 8 listing further matters which had since come to light [72].
House Committee website for later information


Indiana Democratic Party:

  • The Indiana state Democratic Party requested a recount on November 12, 2004 in the 9th District congressional race that Rep. Baron Hill lost by fewer than 1,500 votes [73]. Filing just before the deadline, the request comes amid questions about whether optical-scan voting systems used by some counties recorded straight-party votes erroneously. In the Nov. 2 election, Republican Mike Sodrel defeated Hill, a three-term Democratic incumbent from Seymour, by a margin of 1,485 votes out of more than 287,000 cast, according to preliminary results from the Indiana secretary of state's office.

Green Party

Libertarian Party

  • Libertarian candidate Badnarik has joined the effort with Green party candidate David Cobb to recount the Ohio state presidential vote. [83], [84]

Ralph Nader

Nov 5:
  • New Hampshire Ralph Nader filed a request for a recount of the votes with that state's Secretary of State. Nader's request cited "irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire" and added: "These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected." [85] As one of the candidates on the ballot, Nader has the right to demand a recount, but is required to pay for it (because he lost by more than 1 percent of the vote). The state Attorney General's office initially responded that Nader's request was not valid because, although the request was submitted by the deadline, it was not accompanied by a check for the expenses. [86] Thereafter, however, the Nader campaign conveyed a down payment. The state agreed to begin a partial recount.


Nov 12:
  • New Hampshire Ralph Nader to audit Diebold machines in New Hampshire. According to Nader, the current situation with voting machines warrants investigation. Several elements make voting machines "probative" for investigation, according to Nader, a consumer affairs lawyer: proprietary ownership, secret code, vested interests, a high-value reward, and lack of any real consequences, or likelihood of getting caught, for vote manipulation. "We are told that shenanigans are just politics," said Nader at a press conference on Nov. 10. "Well, it's not politics. It's taking away people's votes."


Republican Party

None yet.

See also

(NPOV note: the presence of any link above involving election irregularities is for those seeking further information on those irregularities in a general sense. It is not an opinion on this specific election.)

External links


Useful sources for data

  • Roper Centre for Public Opinion Research Home page Election 2004, some data and analysis, also acts as a depository for polls and data from previous elections.
(Note - degree of prior adjustment (if any) of data held is not established)
(Includes a great deal of solid information citations evidence and quotes. Eg, Ch.13 "Security")
  • wheresthepaper.org links to a great many documents relevant to voting, the law, state bodies, bidding, computer scientists, and the like.
  • Wired news: "Diebold" online news service archive
  • comp.risks newsgroup election concerns
  • Diebold documents, links, manuals and other raw data from manufacturer (including copies of various files and memos which Diebold sued to remove and failed):
  • Analysis and report by IT security auditor, with many useful links at the end of the page
  • Yahoo information:
A major source site, covers electoral college, electoral system, voting rights, finance, integrity issues in general and specific, campaign issues, maps and analysis from pre 2000 up to 2004, candidates' major official and unofficial information sites and other information in depth.

Organizations

(Note, these two websites are not affiliated with each other, however both carry web pages relevant to this article))

People and Companies Involved

  • Ahmanson family links An in-depth study of the role Howard Ahmanson Jr in national and California politics.

Other