Misplaced Pages

2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 172.168.5.139 (talk) at 05:54, 19 August 2005 (→Racial discrimination and other bias: of the sources for this paragraph, only the greg palast article contains this charge). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 05:54, 19 August 2005 by 172.168.5.139 (talk) (→Racial discrimination and other bias: of the sources for this paragraph, only the greg palast article contains this charge)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

After the 2004 U.S. Presidential election there were allegations of massive fraud, including but not limited to forging vote totals, miscounting votes for Kerry as votes for Bush, widespread voter intimidation and depriving neighborhoods likely to vote for Kerry of voting machines.

Over 40,000 alleged incidents were reported in the 2004 election, ranging from minor errors to direct voter intimidation, mishandled absentee and provisional ballots, malfunctioning or inaccurate machines and/or apparent hacking and vote tampering. (Source ).

File:2004 us per 1000004.png
Map showing problems by percentage, and their state distribution. Voteproject.org

Groups and individuals involved in the investigation and litigation of allegations of irregularities in the 2004 election include Ralph Nader, David Cobb, Michael Badnarik, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, BlackBoxVoting.ORG, members of the House Judiciary Committee and civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson. John Kerry declined to actively contest the results, and played only a minor role in legal action concerning the vote.

On December 13, 2004 the U.S. Electoral College vote gave President Bush a 286-251 victory over challenger John Kerry and was certified by the U.S. Congress on January 6, 2005, despite a challenge to Ohio's electoral votes alleging irregularities in that state's election process. With the election certified, there is no means by which the election result can be overturned. As a result, the most prominent suit contesting the election before the Ohio Supreme Court, 'Moss v. Bush', has been withdrawn.

This article provides detailed coverage of these issues, with many links to external sources. For a broad summary of controversies surrounding the voting process, see 2004 U.S. election voting controversies.

Controversial or irregular aspects of the 2004 election

Following the 2004 Election, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to everyone entitled to vote, whether the votes cast had been correctly counted and whether these irregularities decisively affected the reported outcome of the election.

Among the issues raised in 2004 were allegations or complaints regarding obstacles to voter registration, improper purges of voter lists, voter suppression, accuracy and reliability of voting machines, especially electronic voting, problems with absentee ballots and provisional ballots, impossible voter turnout and possible partisan interference by voting machine company and election officials. Although a recount was conducted in Ohio, many of the alleged improprieties like long lines or tampering cannot be addressed by a recount.


Voting machines and vendor issues

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

Electronic and other types of voting machines and vote tabulation computers are in widespread use today. Before the 2004 election, significant issues were raised about the quality and trustworthiness of electronic voting machines. If an electronic voting machine's software contains intentionally designed or accidental bugs or backdoors it could give someone the ability to alter the outcome of an election.

Some voting machines were not designed to offer an auditable paper trail. This has been the focus of some complaints. Without a voter-verifiable paper trail, it is difficult, if not impossible, to properly audit the results produced by the voting machine. Such concerns are important because votes tallied on an electronic voting machine can be electronically altered and this usually cannot be detected - the machine will always report the same vote total.

Government agencies who purchased voting machines were usually denied access to the manufacturer's proprietary software, and the official certifications were routinely bypassed, either by failure to perform the prescribed tests by manufacturers, by use of uncertified software and updates, or by failure to apply instructions intended to safeguard their integrity once purchased. Even when the software was available for review, there were concerns that most agencies lacked the technical expertise to find problems or to audit changes to the software. In several cases, competent agencies and experts examining the machines expressed dismay at their poor quality and minimal security.

Some computer scientists have stated that these machines are not tamper resistant and encourage the use of open-architecture voting machines to make the process more transparent. At least one voting machine began counting backwards to zero when it reached 32,000 votes. The manufacturer, ES&S, allegedly had known of this issue for two years but had failed to fix the bug. , In two cases, a certifying company (Ciber Inc.) recommended voting machines for certification without testing core firmware or attempting to verify any of the crucial security aspects of the machines.

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 ties. Key managers or funders of all three are significant Republican fund raisers and donors. Managers and/or affiliates of each of these have criminal records including cases of computer fraud, embezzlement and bid rigging. Two senior managers went directly from running the voting machine company to win unheard of success in politics, by means of machines sold to states by their companies. Some believe the consistency of their ties with one political party is sufficient to overturn the 2004 poll, given the small margin of victory. A small alteration of the machine could have been enough to change the result in battleground states.

In addition, voting machine companies have been accused of major security and law violations. Employees (including senior executives) have been found to have had multiple prior convictions including bans for bid-rigging, embezzlement and drug trafficking ,, installing uncertified and untested versions of software on touchscreen voting machines, and tampering with computer files. Internal emails at the manufacturers stated that data files used in the machines are not password protected to prevent manual editing.

Two groups are trying to create new programs for electronic voting machines: The Open Vote Foundation and the Open Voting Consortium.

Exit polls

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

Exit polls are conducted by interviewing voters as they leave the polling place. They have been used in other countries to expose election fraud. In the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, for example, exit poll discrepancies were an indication of possible election fraud. A re-vote was eventually ordered that reversed the original result and agreed more closely with the original exit polls.

The National Election Pool ("NEP") is a consortium of news organizations which was responsible for conducting most exit polls in the 2004 election. NEP hired Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International (Edison/Mitofsky) to conduct the polls. The stated goal of NEP's and Edison/Mitofsky's exit polling and subsequent analysis is to accurately predict election winners, not to detect fraud. Accordingly, they adjust the final (published) exit poll results to match actual vote counts.

In the 2004 election, pre-adjustment exit poll results were most likely leaked onto the Internet during Election Day via CNN . These results, based on unadjusted exit polls, indicated that Kerry was leading Bush. . According to an internal review of 1400 precincts, Kerry's vote in the exit poll was higher than that in the vote count by an average of 1.9 percent. At one point in the day, Kerry's lead over Bush was estimated to be 3% of the popular vote. Differences between vote counts and pre-adjustment exit poll results were larger in battleground states.

A preliminary report from the California Institute of Technology purported to show there was no discrepancy in the exit poll data. Another analysis from Steven Freeman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, gained initial media attention by asserting that the odds that the difference between unadjusted exit poll data and actual vote counts being due to chance is less than 1 in 600,000. His paper has attracted criticism from polling statisticians for not having incorporated large enough design effects, which would mean that the paper has overstated the odds against these anomalies occurring by chance, and for other statistical failings.

Initial exit poll results indicated that Bush made substantial gains among Hispanics, especially in his home state of Texas, but some of these apparent gains now seem to have evaporated . A correction , reported by the reduced Bush's support substantially, turning an 18-point Bush margin among Texan Hispanics into a narrow Kerry lead. Nationwide figures reported later by NBC reduced Bush's gains further, while other surveys have given mixed results. A poll by the William C. Velasquez Institute indicated that Bush's gains among Hispanics since 2000 were not statistically significant, but the University of Pennsylvania's larger National Annenberg Election Survey showed a significant increase in Bush's support (pdf).

In a 77-page report issued in January 2005, the polling company, Edison/Mitofsky, denied the possibility that fraud caused differences between exit poll results and vote tallies. Edison/Mitofsky believes that "Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters.", and this willingness was the cause of the error in the exit poll results. Edison/Mitofsky stated that their evaluation does not support the hypothesis that the discrepancies were higher in precincts which used electronic voting equipment.

A group called US Count Votes responded with its own report , asserting that The Edison/Mitofsky report "gives no consideration to alternative explanations involving election irregularities." and "fails to substantiate their hypothesis that the difference between their exit polls and official election results should be explained by problems with the exit polls. They assert without supporting evidence that (p. 4), 'Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters.' In fact, data included within the report suggest that the opposite might be true." Their report also states that Edison/Mitofsky did not adequately investigate whether the type of voting machine was a factor in discrepancies. Several professors of statistics and other analytical fields contributed to the US Count Votes report. The report recommended that a national database of precinct-level election results should be compiled, in order to support rigorous statistical analysis.

US Count Votes have since produced a further report (Executive Summary: , Full Report: ), which claims that Edison/Mitofsky's data gives support to the idea that the exit polls were more accurate than the official vote tallies, and that a thorough investigation and exhaustive recounts in key states would be appropriate.

Elizabeth Liddle, former USCV contributor, claims that the dependent measure (within precinct error, or WPE) employed by Edison/Mitofsky creates artifacts in the data presented in their 77-page report. She alleges "the conclusion drawn in the USCV report, that the pattern observed requires implausible patterns of non-response and thus leaves the Bush strongholds as having more vote-count corruption hypothesis would seem to be unjustified". She claims the pattern instead is consistent with the E-M hypothesis of the reluctant Bush responder theory.

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 (D-OH) described alleged 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

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."

Activists with ties to the Democratic Party also are alleged to have acted illegally to suppress Republican voters. In Wisconsin, the son of a Democratic Congressman, and 4 volunteers for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, acting independently of that campaign, slashed tires on 25 vans rented by the Republicans to get the vote out. All five were arrested and are facing felony charges. No evidence has been found that any votes were suppresed as a result of their action.

In 2004, the issue of long lines and unequal vote machine distribution (among other issues) received increased attention. In many places, 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. From a statistical perspective, voting machine shortages played by far the largest role.

Racial discrimination and other bias

Some of the issues described above have created problems for voters generally. Critics allege the pattern of disenfranchisement is by design, having disproportionately affected racial minorities and/or urban precincts. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights estimated 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. People for the American Way and the NAACP catalogued a number of voting problems with discriminatory impacts through early 2004.

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 Democratic candidates. Greg Palast, a self described progressive, alleged that if the election had been conducted without improprieties, Kerry would have won the presidency.

Jesse Jackson, a 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." .

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

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.

International election monitoring

A small team of international 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 a press release available. The monitors criticised partisan election officials and the long lines at polling places, but said that electronic voting machines generally appeared to run smoothly.

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." ,

Allegations of a media 'lockdown'

Since reports of irregularities surrounding the 2004 Presidential vote first started to surface even prior to the election, there has been an ongoing complaint by many that the 'mainstream' media has not given enough coverage to the issue, or has in fact intentionally minimized coverage and public awareness. Although numerous publications have covered the voting process leading up to, during and following the election, the allegation of a 'Media Lockdown' has persisted and grown as the majority of the coverage and insight into the election irregularities has taken place in alternative media outlets (independent/local media, internet media, etc.). In light of numerous troublesome occurrences, most notably the exit polls withheld from public scrutiny by various media corporations who own the data, allegations of corporate or government manipulation and suppression of the media continue.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), in an open letter to supporters, alluded to such a media lockdown:

"For this challenge to Ohio's electors to have occurred, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the internet activists, who spread the story of my efforts and supported me in every way possible. I am also thankful to the alternative media, including talk radio and blogs that gave substantial attention and investigation to these matters when all but a handful in the mainstream media refused to examine the facts. "

Other controversies

There have been incidents of irregularity, 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. Please see the In the news section for a list of reports detailing reported irregularities and unresolved aspects of the election.

In Cleveland, a mistake in precinct poll coordination led to hundreds of presidential votes being cast for a third party candidate instead of the intended candidate. Another article alleges that Democratic results on election night were withheld until Republican results had moved ahead.

Some analysts have suggested that a discrepancy between the loss margins of minor Democratic Supreme Court candidate C. Ellen Connally and Kerry/Edwards indicates vote manipulation: one would expect a minor candidate to receive fewer votes, relatively speaking, than the major candidate for the party; in some areas, this situation was reversed.

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."

  1. Strategic redistricting, ignoring normal timelines for re-evaluation.
  2. 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.
  3. Casting and counting the vote on manipulatable and insecure systems.

There are suggestions that websites and newgroups related to fair voting groups or other interested parties may have been visibly hacked and disrupted.

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 allegedly due to 'hanging' chads.

State and Federal government agencies

Master list of Election-related litigation

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary (Democratic Staff)

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee requested an investigation by the GAO, asked Ohio election's chief Kenneth Blackwell for explanations of many irregularities, and held two Public Congressional Forums about voting irregularities in Ohio on December 8 and 13. Among the attendees were Jesse Jackson, Cliff Arnebeck, David Cobb, Bob Fitrakis and (at the first forum) Steve Freeman. Warren Mitofsky and Ken Blackwell were invited to the first forum but declined to attend.

Relevant excerpts from the hearings are available at the article 2004_U.S._presidential_election_recounts_and_legal_challenges.

A 100-page status report on their investigations was released on January 5, 2005, prior to the Jan. 6 joint meeting of Congress to receive the electoral college votes.

For letters and press releases, see http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/

Government Accountability 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.

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.

The 2004 Electoral Vote Challenge in Congress

On January 6 representatives from the 50 American states met to certify the Electoral Votes for president and vice president. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and U.S. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones raised an objection to Ohio's votes, on the grounds that they were not 'regularly given'. This was the first successful objection to an entire state's votes since 1877, and resulted in separate debates and votes on the objection in both Houses. (A similar objection occurred in 2001, with Rep. Maxine Waters challenging Florida's votes, but in that instance no Senator joined the objection so it could not be legally recognised.)

Numerous Democratic members of Congress spoke on the importance of election reform, announced initiatives for constitutional protection of the vote, and called for election integrity protection against conflicts of interest, listing problems with the process of the vote in Ohio and other states. Numerous Republican members of Congress called the objection "frivolous" and the objectors "loonies". House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX)'s aggressive denunciation of the proceedings was noteworthy for his attack on what he called the 'X-Files Wing' of the Democratic Party.

The challenge was rejected by a vote of 1-74 (Yea-Nay) in the Senate and by a vote of 31-267 in the House, as both supporters and challengers anticipated.

Debate continues regarding Election Reform, with a number of bills aimed at eliminating some of these irregularities expected soon in the 109th Congress. Community concern about the integrity of US election procedures is continuing and may bring about reform from several states.

For more information, see 2004 U.S. presidential election recounts and legal challenges.

California State Voting Panel and State Department

In October of 2004 the state of California issued an order stating that 15,000 brand new touch-screen voting machines would 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.

California election officials say there are serious flaws with the machines and that Diebold repeatedly misled the state about them. " 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. ,

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that he will sue e-voting technology maker Diebold on charges that it defrauded the state because of their 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. In December 2004, Diebold settled the case by agreeing to pay $2.6 million and to implement "certain reforms".

Voter's rights advocacy organizations

Blackboxvoting.ORG

Black Box Voting has launched a fraud audit into Florida and Ohio. Three investigators (Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson, and Kathleen Wynne) were in Florida requesting hand counts on selected counties that had not fully complied with blackboxvoting.org's Nov. 2 Freedom of Information requests. Blackboxvoting.org accuses Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of failing to properly account for provisional ballots, and refusing to allow citizens to see pollbooks.

The director of blackboxvoting.org, Bev Harris, has filed a lawsuit against Palm Beach County, Florida Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore, which accuses her of stonewalling or ignoring requests for public records.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation electronic voting machines may 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. Few machines provide voter-verifiable paper ballots which can be used to detect vote 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 a poorly designed e-voting system to defraud an election. EFF has 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 13 and 15 November 2004 in Columbus, Ohio. The hearings were organized by the Election Protection Coalition. The hearings allowed citizens to enter their concerns regarding voter suppression and other irregularities into the public record.

Lynn Landes' investigation of Associated Press exit polls reporting

Landes' investigation states that the Associated Press (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. She also points out there are significant ownership ties between conservative newspapers and voting machine manufacturers.

Verified Voting and trueMajority campaigns

Over a thousand computer scientists, academics, lawyers, elected officials and regular citizens have signed verifiedvoting.org's petition to require voting machines with a verifiable paper trail. Ben Cohen (founder of Ben & Jerry's) 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."

Political party efforts

Democratic Party

34 Democratic members of Congress, including one Senator, objected to the counting of Ohio's Electoral votes on January 6. Their objection was overruled by separate votes in both the Senate and House after debates lasting one and four hours respectively. Part of the evidence that was used for debate and discussion was the House Committee on the Judiciary Democratic Staff 101-page report titled "What Went Wrong in Ohio". The report was entered into the Congressional Record on January 6. 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 , and this was followed by a second letter on November 8 listing further matters which had since come to light . The investigation by the GAO is ongoing.

Numerous Democratic politicians have responded to the irregularities reported in the 2004 Presidential election. The Democratic National Committee (DNC)'s Voting Rights Institute has initiated an investigation of the Ohio irregularities. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) promised on January 6 that HAVA (the 'Help Americans Vote Act') would be 'fixed' in the 109th Congress. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is expected to introduce the 'Federal Election Integrity Act' in February 2005. 'FEIA' is aimed at preventing election officials from participating in campaigns they oversee. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) agreed to join Senator Boxer (D-CA) in re-introducing legislation in the Senate requiring a paper-audit for all electronic voting machines currently in service in the U.S.

Third party candidates

Green Party candidate David Cobb, in conjunction with his Libertarian opponent Michael Badnarik, raised the funds needed for a recount of the Ohio presidential vote in four days. Their request was filed with the required fees on November 19, and the recount was begun on December 13. Numerous irregularities were reported with the conduct of this recount, and Cobb filed a federal complaint on December 30 asking for a recount to be reconducted using uniform standards.

Cobb and Badnarik also requested a recount in New Mexico, but were asked to pay the estimated cost of $1.4 million up front. They instead challenged this requirement in court, and are appealing an initial ruling that upheld this fee.

They also requested a recount in Nevada, but withdrew this request due to financial and other demands which they felt were unreasonable.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader filed a request for a recount of the votes with New Hampshire'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." The state conducted a partial recount which was completed Nov. 30, finding no significant discrepancies. .

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."

See also

Template:2004 U.S. presidential election controversy see also

For a detailed timeline of events surrounding the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, see Timeline of the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities. All news, including recent news, has been moved to the abovenamed article.
(Information relating to voting machines, exit polls or vote suppression may need to be reflected in their relevant pages)

External links

News/comment

Organizations

Multimedia

  • Video of the January 6 Congressional debate regarding Ohio's challenged Electoral votes.
  • Video of the experiences of African Americans trying to vote in Ohio on Election Day. (clip1: video, wmv) (clip2: video, wmv)
  • U.S House Committee on the Judiciary Open Congressional Forum in Ohio: rtsp://cspanrm.fplive.net/cspan/project/c04/c04120804_conyers.rm (real media)
  • U.S House Committee on the Judiciary Open Congressional Forum in Ohio (video) Highlights (wmv)
  • Sworn testimony of David Cobb to House Judiciary (mp3)
  • Sworn testimony of Clint Curtis to House Judiciary (rm) (wmv)
  • The Counter-Inaugural Committee's press conference as broadcast on C-SPAN including Brian Anders of the Washington Peace Center, Gael Murphy of Code Pink and United for Peace and Justice, Basav Sen of Mobilization for Global Justice, David Lytel of ReDefeatBush and Shahid Buttar of the Counter-Inaugural Committee. Lytel reviews what is expected on January 6th in Washington. (video)
  • 'Stolen Election' - Video made by members of DU (Democratic Underground) RealPlayer
  • 11/08/04 Olbermann segment online
  • Ohio Public Radio: Excerpts of March 23, 2005 Ohio Voting Hearing exchanges between Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) and J. Kenneth Blackwell, SoS OH.

Interviews

  • Cliff Arnbeck on American Dream Radio (audio)
  • Cliff Arnbeck on Pacifica Radio (audio)
  • Cliff Arnbeck on CSPAN (video)
  • Jesse Jackson on MSNBC (video)
  • Kenneth Blackwell on MSNBC (video)
  • Kenneth Blackwell takes questions from reporters (real media)

Discussion Forums

  • Democratic Underground discussion board on the topic
  • CASE_OH C.A.S.E is the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections in Ohio
  • ElectionFraud2004 Yahoo 2004 election newsgroup
  • TruthSeekersElection2004 Yahoo voter fraud discussion and discussion of a better future system

Resources

Category: