Vote Watch 2004
Vote/Election fraud, vote suppression, voting irregularities, voter intimidation in Election 2004

 

Acknowledgements


Home Page Interpreting Pre-Election Polls Anti-Kerry Lies and Fraud
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Here, I use the definition of Swing States by the Swing State Project

Please select your state of interest to proceed. (If there is no link, that means there is no content for that state yet).

OHIO

12/7/04 [Permalink]
Ohio's GOP Secretary of State continues his disdain for voting rights by delaying start of recount to the date when U.S. Presidential election will be formally certified nationwide

Bob Parry writes in the Consortium News:

George W. Bush’s political allies appear to be slow-rolling a requested recount in Ohio, leaving so little time that even if widespread voting fraud is discovered, the finding will come too late to derail Bush’s second term.

Though balloting occurred on Nov. 2, more than a month ago, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell still hasn’t certified an official vote, a move now expected on Monday, Dec. 6. Since Blackwell also has battled requests from third-party candidates for an expedited recount, a review of Ohio’s vote now won’t begin until Dec. 13, at the earliest, according to Blackwell’s office. [See Boston Globe, Dec. 1, 2004]

But the Dec. 13 date is the same day the electors of the Electoral College meet to formally select the President of the United States. So even if the recount uncovers enough fraud to reveal John Kerry as the rightful winner in Ohio, it would be too late to change that outcome.

Meanwhile, as Ohio’s official foot-dragging has gone on, Bush’s election-night lead has continued to shrink with the counting of overseas and provisional ballots. The Associated Press reported on Dec. 3 that its vote tally of Ohio’s 88 counties showed Kerry narrowing Bush’s lead to 119,000 votes from about 136,000 votes, leaving Bush with a 2 percent lead.

But Kerry also might stand to gain a substantial number of votes from a recount that would examine ballots thrown out by antiquated punch-card voting machines. They are  used mostly in poor areas, especially African-American neighborhoods that are Democratic strongholds. Other voters, believing that Ohio’s electronic systems were susceptible to vote rigging, have sought audits to check for tampering.

Instead of embracing these examinations to resolve voter doubts, however, Secretary of State Blackwell and other Bush allies in Ohio have resisted the demands. Now, the clock is running out for any meaningful review. [Citizens demanding a full recount in Ohio scheduled a rally for Dec. 4 in the capital of Columbus Other protests are being organized in the days leading up to the Electoral College meetings on Dec. 13.]

Florida Echoes

In some ways, the United States is witnessing a repeat of Election 2000 where Bush first frustrated Al Gore’s demands for recounts in Florida and then had five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court block a recount ordered by the state Supreme Court. Finally, the five Republican justices in Washington required that a reorganized Florida recount be conducted in two hours, a clearly impossible task that handed the presidency to George W. Bush.

Placing national unity as a priority over democracy, the U.S. news media stepped in after Election 2000 to sweep away any lingering doubts about Bush’s legitimacy. The unity message was that the United States needed to put the contentious election in the past, even though Bush was the first popular-vote loser in more than a century to move into the White House.

This protection of Bush’s fragile legitimacy gained even greater momentum after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The “united-we-stand” sentiment put the New York Times and other leading news organizations in a particular quandary in November 2001 when they completed an unofficial recount of Florida’s votes.

The recount discovered that if all legally cast votes had been counted, Al Gore would have won Florida regardless of what standard of “chad” was used. In other words, Gore was the rightfully elected President of the United States, not Bush.

To avert the predictable conservative outrage over the recount findings, the major national news outlets simply buried the “Gore-won” lead. Instead, they topped their stories with a bogus analysis that a recount would have left Bush as the rightful winner.

The analysis assumed, falsely, that so-called “overvotes,” where voters checked a candidate and wrote in the name, would not have been included in the recount. But the news organizations were erroneous in this assumption because the judge handling the Florida recount had ordered those votes tallied and almost certainly would have added them to the state’s total, since they were clearly legal under Florida law. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “So Bush Did Steal the White House.”]

Now, with Team Bush running out the clock in Ohio, one has to wonder what contortions the mainstream news media would put itself through if a belated recount – after Bush’s election is formalized – shows that Kerry should have won Ohio and thus the White House.

 

11/20/04 [Permalink]
A sample of the vote suppression and voting irregularities in Ohio captured by Voters Unite in a single page graphic

Votersunite has an excellent single page graphic that shows some of the reasons why the problems in Ohio need to be investigated and why Ohio deserves a recount. For convenience I have captured their chart in JPEG form and reproduced it below:

 

11/16/04_1 [Permalink]
Ohio's Sandusky County had some votes counted twice raising doubts about some results from that county

Via Votersunite, a report in the News-Messenger:

Sandusky County elections officials discovered some ballots in the Nov. 2 election were counted twice.

The finding further emphasizes the fact that the 49-vote lead Republican challenger Irma Celestino has over Democratic incumbent Anna Senior isn't the final word. That race will be decided when provisional, military or remade ballots are counted and the official count is taken Thursday. It is not known how much of an impact it might have had on any other unofficial count.

Barb Tuckerman, director of the Sandusky County Board of Elections, said when she reviewed election information Nov. 8 she discovered the mistake.

"Clyde had 131 percent voting," Tuckerman said. "That's not possible. I knew there was something amiss."

After reviewing the computer discs used to store precinct tallies, officials came to the conclusion that some ballots in nine precincts were counted twice.

 

11/15/04_2 [Permalink]
Report from at least one Ohio county that 20 to 30 machines were recording votes for one candidate as votes for another and had to be recalibrated; another report of a machine that recorded a negative 25 million votes!

Via reader radtimes, a column in Roanoke.com:

In a report from the Youngstown, Ohio Vindicator (Nov. 3), the chairman of the Mahoning County Board of Elections said that 20 to 30 machines needed to be recalibrated during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being counted for that candidate's opponent.

Via Votersunite, a report in the Los Angeles Times:

Based on reports that Dill's organization — Verified Voting.org — has received, one precinct in Youngstown, Ohio, recorded a negative 25 million votes, which was discarded from official results.

 

11/15/04 [Permalink]
Former Deputy Director of Auglaize County, Ohio, resigns after claiming that former employee of electronic voting firm ES&S was given unauthorized access to the county's central vote tabulation computer before the election

Via reader CS, there is this report in The Free Press:

In Auglaize County, a letter dated October 21 under the signature of Ken Nuss, the county’s former deputy director, alleges that Joe McGinnis, a former employee of Election Systems & Software (ES&S), violated election protocol with his unauthorized use of the county’s central tabulating computer that creates ballots and compiles election results. Nuss, who resigned on October 21, alleges that McGinnis was improperly granted access to the computer the weekend of October 16.

 

11/12/04 [Permalink]
Franklin County, Ohio, absentee ballots designed similar to infamous "butterfly" ballots

Via reader radtimes, a report in The Free Press:

Even if they are counted, Franklin County's absentee ballot forms are designed in ways strikingly reminiscent of those notorious butterfly ballots in the Florida 2000 presidential election. On Franklin County absentee ballot forms, Kerry is the third name on the list of presidential candidates on the left side of the ballot. But, the punch card is designed to fit in the middle, so the actual number you punch for Kerry is hole "4." If you mistakenly punch hole "3" you've just voted for Bush.

 

11/11/04_4 [Permalink] UPDATED 11/15/04
Eligibility criteria for Ohio provisional ballots (which are expected to favor Kerry) changed after the election in Cuhayoga County (on 11/9/04) per Election Observer. Ballots without birth dates are ordered to be thrown out even though earlier instructions clearly stated lack of birth date was not a disqualifier. Subsequently Ohio Secretary of State issues ruling allowing such ballots to be counted. 

Via reader radtimes, a report in The Free Press:

Are the provisional ballots in Ohio being thrown out? A new rule for counting provisional ballots in Cuyahoga County, Ohio was implemented on Tuesday, November 9 at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon, according to election observer Victoria Lovegren.

The new ruling in Cuyahoga County mandates that provisional ballots in yellow packets must be “Rejected” if there is no “date of birth” on the packet. The Free Press obtained copies of the original “Provisional Verification Procedure” from Cuyahoga County which stated “Date of birth is not mandatory and should not reject a provisional ballot.” The original procedure required the voter’s name, address and a signature that matched the signature in the county’s database.

Lovegren described the clerks as “kind of disturbed” after the new ruling came down. She said that one of the clerks told her, “This is new. This just came down. They just changed it in the last thirty minutes.” According to Lovegren, 80 yellow-jacketed provisional ballots piled up in the hour and 45 minutes she observed. By Lovegren’s tally, three provisional ballots were rejected because the registered voters’ registration had been “cancelled.” The rest, she said, were being discarded because of no date of birth.

Via poultrynow at Dailykos, here is an update in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Meanwhile, counties that were confused about whether to validate provisional ballots that don't have voters' dates of birth on them were told Friday by the secretary of state's office in a conference call to allow those ballots.

Cuyahoga County elections board director Michael Vu said there had been confusion over whether missing birth dates made the ballots invalid.

"We're counting those now," he said.

 

11/11/04_3 [Permalink] UPDATED 12/7/04
Ohio Warren County election officials who instituted a "lockdown" during vote counting (keeping the media away) claimed terrorist threat notification from FBI led to the "lockdown"; FBI and Ohio Public Safety Director said there was no such threat.

Keith Olbermann at Hard Blogger reports:

David Cobb of the Green Party told a California radio station late yesterday afternoon that he is “quite likely to be demanding a recount in Ohio,” with a final decision to be reached and announced during the day.

...

In any event, if Nader and Cobb are at the edges, questions about Ohio moved back into the mainstream yesterday with another cogent article in The Cincinnati Enquirer. The rationale for the bizarre “lockdown” of the vote-counting venue in Warren County on election night suddenly broke down when it was contradicted by spokespersons from the FBI and Ohio’s primary homeland security official.

County Emergency Services Director Frank Young said last week that in a face-to-face meeting with an FBI agent, he was warned that Warren County, outside Cincinnati, faced a “terrorist threat.” County Commissioners President Pat South amplified, insisting to us at Countdown that her jurisdiction had received a series of memos from Homeland Security about the threat. “These memos were sent out statewide, not just to Warren County, and they included a lot of planning tools and resources to use for election day security.

“In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services,” Ms. South continued, “we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10.”

But the Bureau says it issued no such warning.

“The FBI did not notify anyone in Warren County of any specific terrorist threat to Warren County before Election Day,” FBI spokesman Michael Brooks told Enquirer reporters Erica Solvig and Dan Horn.

Through a spokeswoman, Ohio Public Safety Director Ken Morckel told the newspaper that his office knew of no heightened terror warning for election night for Warren County or any other community in Greater Cincinnati.

Despite the contradiction from both security services, Ms. South again amplified, telling the Enquirer “It wasn’t international terrorism that we were in fear of; it was more domestic terrorism.”

So the media was kept two floors away from the vote counting at the Warren County Administration on election night on the basis of a “10” FBI terror threat that the FBI says was never issued.

UPDATE 12/7/04

Via reader radtimes I came across a Free Press article that led to me to the website of Richard Hayes Phillips who is monitoring the Ohio recount. Phillips has a page dedicated to Warren County, raising questions about some of the results (not to mention that massive Bush advantage in this county).

 

11/11/04_2 [Permalink] UPDATED 12/7/04
Additional modes of Democratic vote suppression in Ohio may have easily cost Kerry tens of thousands of votes: GOP Secretary of State stuck with outdated and less reliable punch-card machines in Democratic counties (refusing to spend budgeted tens of millions of dollars); the number of precincts in highly populated Democratic counties was significantly reduced unlike in Republican counties leading to a lower vote gain for Kerry; polling machine reductions in Democratic precincts, other problems and delays lasting for several hours added to the mix - indicating poor preparation even though turnout was below the state's expectations

Via reader radtimes a report in the Boston Phoenix (bold text is my emphasis):

BUSH HAS, at the moment, won Ohio by 136,483 votes, but a number of considerations throw that lead into serious doubt. For one thing, that number will likely diminish when the state’s approximately 155,000 provisional ballots are processed. Most of those who had to use provisional ballots probably were first-time voters whose names had not made it onto their precinct lists, observers say, and first-timers went 54-46 for Kerry in Ohio, according to exit polls.

Another 92,672 votes were discarded, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, mostly due to now-familiar problems with punch-card ballots. Those punch-card machines are — surprise, surprise — predominantly used in urban areas that tend to vote Democratic. In Cuyahoga County — two-to-one Kerry country — a voter reported misaligned holes and out-of-order pages on the punch ballots to Election Protection, a nonpartisan coalition of organizations led by People for the American Way Foundation, which was monitoring elections in select states, including Ohio.

Punch cards also probably slowed down the voting process, suggests Carlo LoParo, spokesperson for the Ohio secretary of state, as voters with memories of Florida made super-extra-sure to remove the chads they produce completely. "People were a little more methodical, making sure they didn’t leave any hanging chads," agrees Dan Trevas, communications director for the Ohio Democratic Party.

But wait — wasn’t the Help America Vote Act of 2002 supposed to help rid states of these machines? Why, yes — in fact, Ohio received $133 million from the federal government specifically to replace those old clunkers with new DRE and optical-scan machines. The state even contracted with venders. But then Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell — a Republican — had a change of heart. The technology was not sufficiently proven secure, he said. Nothing has been purchased. The $133 million stayed in the bank. "We weren’t going to spend it on more punch-card machines," says LoParo. Or on more poll workers, or training, or any of that nonsense.

"There should have been a lot of effort [put into], instead of talking about challengers, talking about getting enough machines and getting ready to handle the large turnout," Trevas says.

...

Serious questions have also been raised about absentee ballots, which may have been withheld from those who requested them — a problem in the Bay State as well. The single biggest election complaint in Massachusetts came from college students who sent for, but never received, absentee ballots from their home states, says David Harris, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, in Boston. He received at least 50 such complaints from Harvard alone. The same problem reared its head at Boston University, says BU psychology professor Deborah Belle: more than a half-dozen of her students told her similar stories.

We don’t know yet how many of those students were trying to vote in Ohio, but we do know that the Republican-led Ohio legislature prevented the elections department from implementing expedited absentee balloting and early voting, says Trevas. Then, Blackwell barred those who never received their absentee ballots from casting provisional ballots in person — that is, until Election Day, when a Toledo woman filed and won a lawsuit against him in US District Court.

...

MANY OF THOSE who did get to the polls had to wait ages to get to a booth. There were reports of waiting times of two-and-a-half-hours in Cleveland, five in Columbus, and six in the college town of Gambier.

This was all officially blamed on extraordinarily high turnout, but many disagree. After all, turnout was actually lower than predicted by the Secretary of State’s office, and the increase from 2000 worked out to just 64 additional voters per Ohio precinct. "Everybody saw it coming — the huge lines, the huge voter turnout," says Britton. "We’re very concerned that county officials did not adequately prepare."

"It was poor planning, and I think you lay that on the head of the governor and secretary of state," Trevas says.

But Republican governor Bob Taft and Blackwell did prepare: they reduced the number of polling places, ensuring long lines.

As noted above, the state had been anticipating the purchase of DRE machines, which are both more expensive and — at least in theory — quicker. That meant, according to Blackwell, that counties could make do with fewer machines without affecting the lines, and fewer faster machines meant that counties could merge small precincts together to share them. The Republican-led legislature helped encourage precinct consolidation by raising the maximum allowable number of registered voters per precinct. So, some counties merged their polling places, cutting as many as 48 percent in some cases.

When the state suddenly nixed the new machines, those counties were left with fewer polling places for more voters, with the old slow machines, and about the same number of poll workers. Erie County consolidated 101 precincts in 2000 into just 62 this year. As a result, the average number of voters per precinct in Erie nearly doubled, from 355 to 640.

"Our county was in a budget crunch," says Ruth Leuthold — Republican — director of the Crawford County Board of Elections, which went from 67 precincts to 46. "We did it due to budgetary reasons, and to go to electronic voting."

The long lines were greatly exacerbated by the poll workers, whose average age was 78 statewide, according to Bryan Williams, director of the Summit County Board of Education.

And in case the octogenarians were too nimble, Williams — Republican — encouraged them to take their time. "At their training, I emphasized accuracy over speed," Williams says.

At one Columbus site, the head poll worker was a half-hour late to open up, "and things went downhill from there," reported the Columbus Dispatch. Several other poll workers in the county overslept, according to the paper. And oddly enough, the same thing happened in Cuyahoga County, where four polling places opened late, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Another poll worker was fired for showing up drunk.

Nobody in Columbus’s Franklin County, including poll workers, could reach the elections-board office by phone — even when machines broke, which was frequent. For a 45-minute stretch at one site, all three voting machines were inoperative, according to the Dispatch, which added that half of the 100 people in line left without voting.

Almost certainly, long lines disproportionately disenfranchise poorer, working-class voters, who tend to live in high-density city precincts, and have less flexibility in their schedules. "We heard of folks who were told by their bosses they have to get back to work instead of stay and vote," says Britton.

LoParo of the Secretary of State’s office dismisses the concern, saying that "we have heard anecdotally" that only a few people showed up but didn’t vote. But Ohio newspapers were filled with anecdotes to the contrary. And many people probably didn’t bother to show up, as word about the long waits spread. "People were in line on their cell phones telling their friends not to try to take one hour to vote — everybody was in line doing that when I went," Trevas says.

HERE’S THE rub: a Phoenix analysis shows that the precinct reductions disproportionately hurt Ohio’s Democratic turnout.

Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 20 suffered a significant reduction — shutting at least 20 percent (or at least 30) of their precincts. Most of those counties have Republicans serving as Board of Elections director, including the four biggest: Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, and Lucas.

Those 20 counties went heavily to Gore in 2000, 53 to 42 percent. The other 68 counties, which underwent little-to-no precinct consolidation, went exactly the opposite way in 2000: 53 to 42 percent to Bush.

In the 68 counties that kept their precinct count at or near 2000 levels, Kerry benefited more than Bush from the high turnout, getting 24 percent more votes than Gore did in 2000, while Bush increased his vote total by only 17 percent.

But in the 20 squeezed counties, the opposite happened. Bush increased his vote total by 22 percent, and Kerry won just 19 percent more than Gore in 2000.

If the reduced number of precincts in those counties accounts for the difference, it cost Kerry about 45,000 votes. And who knows what might have happened had the state increased polling places in anticipation of the high turnout it knew was coming? And if the state had encouraged voting rather than threatened to challenge credentials? And if there had been no dirty tricks and intimidation? And if all had received their absentee ballots?

Here's another snippet from David Shuster on Hard Blogger:

  • We still "don't know" why the officials in charge of voting at Kenyon college in Ohio equipped the site with only two voting machines.  No explanation has been offered.  Students who waited in line for nine hours believe it was an effort to disenfranchise easily identifiable democrats.

Via reader CS, a report in The Free Press:

  • In Franklin County, where Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder is also the former Executive Director of the county’s Republican Party, the county Board of Elections building looked like a bunker. Scores of city buses blocked parking spaces on the street outside, numerous concrete barricades surrounded the parking lot, and a metal detector was stationed at the only entrance. A phalanx of armed deputy sheriffs swarmed the only site where provisional voters could cast a guaranteed ballot. The Columbus Dispatch confirmed an Election Day Free Press story that far fewer voting machines were present in predominantly black Democratic inner-city voting wards than in the recent primary election and the 2000 presidential election, with their lighter turnouts. The reduced number of machines caused voters to wait up to seven hours and wait an average of approximately three hours. One Republican Central Committee member told the Free Press that Damschroder held back as many as 2000 machines and dispersed many of the other machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County.

Via reader LV, another report in the Free Press by Bob Fitrakis:

One telling piece of evidence was entered into the record at the Saturday, November 13 public hearing on election irregularities and voter suppression held by nonpartisan voter rights organizations. Cliff Arnebeck, a Common Cause attorney, introduced into the record the Franklin County Board of Elections spreadsheet detailing the allocation of e-voting computer machines for the 2004 election. The Board of Elections’ own document records that, while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day.

The Board of Elections document details that there are 2886 “Total Machines” in Franklin County. Twenty of them are “In Vans for Breakdowns.” The County record acknowledges 2886 were available on Election Day, November 2 and that 2798 of their machines were “placed by close of polls.” The difference between the machines “available” and those “placed” is 68. The nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition provided legal advisors and observed 58 polling places in primarily African American and poor neighborhoods in Franklin County.

An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections’ allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city. The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent suburbs.

Franklin County had traditionally used a formula of one machine per 100 voters, with machine usage allowable up to 125 votes per machine. The County’s rationale is as follows: if it takes each voter five minutes to vote, 12 people an hour, 120 people in ten hours and the remaining three hours taken up moving people in and out of the voting machines.

Once a machine is recording 200 voters per machine, 100% over optimum use, the system completely breaks down. This causes long waits in long lines and potential voters leaving before casting their ballots, due to age, disability, work and family responsibilities.

A preliminary analysis by the Free Press shows six suburban polling places with 100 votes a machine or less, and only one in the city of Columbus meeting or falling under the guideline.

The legendary affluent Republican enclave of Upper Arlington has 34 precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200 votes per machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one machine. By contrast, 39 Columbus city polling machines had more than 200 votes per machine and 42 were over 190 votes per machine. This means 17% of Columbus’ machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity while in Upper Arlington the figure was 3%.

In the Democratic stronghold of Columbus 139 of the 472 precincts had at least one and up to five fewer machine than in the 2000 presidential election. Two of Upper Arlington’s 34 precincts lost at least one machine. In the 2004 presidential election, 29% of Columbus’ precincts, despite a massive increase in voter registration and turnout, had fewer machines than in 2000. In Upper Arlington, 6% had fewer machines in 2004 One of those precincts had a 25% decline in voter registration and the other had a 1% increase. Compare that to Columbus ward 1B, where voter registration went up 27%, but two machines were taken away in the 2004 election. Or look at 23B where voter registration went up 22% and they lost two machines since the 2000 election, causing an average of 207 votes to be cast on each of the remaining machines. In the year 2000, only 97 votes were cast per machine in the precinct. Thus, in four years, the ward went from optimum usage to system failure.

Jeff Graessle, Franklin County Election Operations Division Manager, told the Citizen’s Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE) Ohio voting rights activists that Franklin County does not use a simple 100 votes per machine guideline. Rather, they allocated their machines in the 2004 election based on a new criteria determined by ACTIVE registered voters. Hence, an affluent area like Upper Arlington which has shown a consistent pattern of voters is rewarded with more machines and fewer losses. A less affluent area of Columbus where voters miss voting at more elections and may only come out in a hotly tested election, like Bush-Kerry, are punished with fewer machines.

Of course, there’s a direct correlation between affluence and votes for Bush and below medium income areas and votes for Kerry. Franklin County, Ohio’s formula served to disenfranchise disproportionately poor, minority and Democratic voters under the guise of rewarding the “likely” voter or active registered voters.

UPDATE 11/20/04

Bob Fitrakis has more here.

UPDATE 12/7/04

Via reader radtimes, here is an update from Richard Hayes Phillips in the Free Press:

The Free Press on Election Day posted a disturbing story, later confirmed by the Columbus Dispatch. The Free Press reported that Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder deliberately withheld voting machines from predominantly black Democratic wards in Columbus, and dispersed some of the machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County. Damschroder is the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party. Sources close to the Board of Elections told the Free Press that Damschroder and Ohio’s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell met with President George W. Bush in Columbus on Election Day. The idea was to discourage turnout in Democratic wards by forcing voters to wait in long lines at the polling places. Such a strategy would be far more effective than encouraging turnout in Republican wards. Elections are all about margins. There are 74 wards in Columbus. George W. Bush won 12 wards, with a margin of 7.35%. John F. Kerry won 62 wards, with a margin of 37.62%. Affecting Kerry’s turnout would greatly reduce his margin of victory in Columbus, giving the Republicans a much better chance of overtaking Kerry given a strong enough showing in suburban and small town Republican strongholds.

In order to investigate this matter, I obtained from the Franklin County Board of Elections all the data I needed in order to calculate, ward by ward, and precinct by precinct: (1) The ratio of registered voters per voting machine. (2) Percent turnout, calculated as total ballots cast divided by the number of registered voters. (3) Percent for Kerry, calculated as votes cast for Kerry divided by votes cast for president. (4) Margin of victory or defeat for Kerry, calculated as the difference between the vote totals for Kerry and Bush.

All 36 of the wards at the bottom of the list of voters per voting machine were won by Kerry, and they include most of his strongholds. In 29 of the 36 wards, Kerry exceeded his city wide share of 62.22% of the vote. However, these wards suffered a low voter turnout.It is important to understand what these numbers mean. The polls in Ohio were open from 6:30 A.M. to 7:30 P.M. That is 13 hours, or 780 minutes. If there are 400 registered voters per voting machine, and turnout is 60%, each voter has less than 3.5 minutes to vote, and that is assuming a steady stream of voters, with no rushes at certain hours. It also assumes no challenges to voters at the polls. If there are 550 registered voters per voting machine, and the turnout is 60%, each voter has 2.4 minutes. All of this amounts to theft of votes. It has been shown above that the Kerry precincts enjoyed a voter turnout similar to that of the Bush precincts when supplied with enough voting machines.

Thus I conclude that the withholding of voting machines from predominantly Democratic wards in the City of Columbus cost John Kerry upwards of 17,000 votes. A more detailed calculation could be done on a precinct by precinct basis, but that is not necessary here. The purpose is to illustrate the magnitude of the conspiracy. Matt Damschroder did not act alone. There are 74 wards and 472 precincts in Columbus, Ohio. It is not possible for one person to have delivered all the voting machines, and it is unlikely that nobody else was involved in planning where to deliver them. Anyone who associated with Mr. Damschroder on or shortly before Election Day should be investigated for possible complicity.

 

11/11/04_1 [Permalink]
Bush gets extra 3893 votes in Gahanna Precinct in Ohio's Franklin County - only 638 total voters cast ballots in that precinct

Via BradBlog, we have this AP report:

An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

 

11/2/04_1 [Permalink]
Democratic Party accused of making calls to Republicans in Ohio with wrong polling site information; Democrats claim volunteers made a mistake and that Democratic voters were also provided incorrect information

Via Demos, we have this report in the Marion Star:

The Ohio Republican Party accused the Marion County Democratic Party of trying to suppress Republican voter turnout in a last-minute legal attempt filed Monday in Marion County Common Pleas Court.

Republicans, in a suit filed by Columbus attorney Mark Landes, accused the local Democratic party of calling registered Republicans and telling them that their polling locations had been changed. While alleged instances of such action were reported in five of Ohio's 88 counties, Landes said the suit was filed in Marion County because the party had received an answering machine tape with the misleading information recorded.

According to Landes and Marion County Clerk of Courts Julie Kagel, Judge Robert Davidson disqualified himself from ruling on the case and refused to file a temporary restraining order because his household had also received such a call. Considering Judge Robert Fragale, the other county common pleas judge, is off this week and also a candidate in today's election, Landes said he does not expect the court to take any action until after the election.

"Frankly, if they're willing to call and lie to people, I'm not sure if they would follow a court order anyway," said Landes.

Marion County Democratic Party chair Cathy Chaffin said no attempt to mislead voters was made by Democrats but acknowledged mistakes may have happened.

Landes said the suit was filed after Jamie Straw, a registered Republican in Marion County, received a phone call saying to vote at the Marion Catholic High School. Landes said Straw is a Capaldi Drive resident whose precinct votes at the Marion County Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

According to an affidavit signed by Straw, the caller claimed to be from the Marion County Democratic Party.

Mark Weaver, attorney and consultant for the Ohio Republican Party, said he has received other similar complaints from Butler, Fairfield, Greene and Franklin counties. He dismissed suggestions the calls were simply mistakes.

"This seems to be a calculated attempt to steal this election," he said.

Out of those counties, Landes said Marion County was selected because Straw's tape was the strongest evidence available. He said if Davidson would have been able to take action, it would have forced all five counties' parties to stop calling with false information.

The suit was also filed against the Ohio Democratic Party, Greene County Democratic Party and ACT Ohio, a 527 political action committee. It also claimed that Democrats misinformed registered Republicans about the date of the election, saying it will be held on Wednesday, and told them that certain documentation must be taken to the polls in order for them to be able to vote. State law does not require identification in order to vote.

The suit recommended a temporary restraining order against Democrats to "halt their un-American conduct" and stop making misleading phone calls. The Ohio Republican Party also requested more than $25,000 in compensatory damages.

Asked whether it could lead to attempts to challenge results of today's election, Landes said, "If people show up at the wrong polls we're going to know why."

Chaffin said neither the Marion County nor Ohio Democratic parties attempted to give anyone the incorrect day to vote. As far as the other allegations, she said no effort was under way to give out incorrect information but said volunteers may have done so by accident.

"Do volunteers make mistakes? Sure they do," she said. "If they made the mistake it was an honest mistake."

Chaffin said Democrats were calling people who either voted Democrat in the last two years or were identified as potential John Kerry for president supporters. She said it is possible that calls may have been made to people who had moved since the party obtained its list of registered voters, which would mean their precinct polling place would have also been misidentified. She said volunteers over the weekend were told to stop giving out polling locations and instead refer people to call the Marion County Board of Elections.

Dan Trevas, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, wished Republicans had called to alert them of the problems, instead of rushing to file a lawsuit.

"It's just an unfortunate mistake by some eager volunteers who are trying to get people out to vote," Trevas said, noting the party also heard from two Democrats in Marion County who also received incorrect polling site information.

Volunteers would call back those people Monday evening to rectify the situation, he said.

Marion County Republican Party chair Karyle Mumper disagreed and said she had phone calls at her home over the weekend informing her that wrong information was being given out.

 

11/1/04_2 [Permalink] UPDATED 11/2/04
Fake leaflet emerges in Ohio saying Republicans should vote on Tuesday (11/2) and Democrats on Wednesday (11/3)

Ohio Voter Suppression News mentions this:

Franklin County hit with phony leaflets

Matt Damschroder, director of the Franklin County (Columbus area) Board of Elections held a news conference Monday afternoon to announce that parts of the county had indeed been victimized by people distributing the following flyer:

[eRiposte note: Picture of flyer is at the URL above. I am reproducing the text here in brown font]

Franklin County Board of Elections

Election Bulletin

Because the confusion caused [sic] by unexpected heavy voter registration, voters are asked to apply to the following schedule:

Republican voters are asked to vote at your assigned location on Tuesday.

Democratic voters are asked to vote at your assigned location on Wednesday.

Thank you for your cooperation, and remember voting is a privilege.

Franklin County, Where Government Works

Another update from them:

Dirty Tricks on Columbus East Side

My boss was canvassing this morning for ACT, putting out GOTV door tags in a predominantly black neighborhood on the near east side of Columbus. Repugs had been there first, putting up door hangers that read: Vote for George Bush/Dick Cheney on Tuesday, November 2: Vote for John Kerry/John Edwards on Wednesday, November 3. Incredible!

 

11/1/04_1 [Permalink
Vote suppression dirty tricks in Ohio grow at an alarming pace

Ohio Voter Suppression News writes:

The dirty tricks haven't really started yet.

Whatever the motive, election officials say voters are genuinely confused by the misinformation. In the Cleveland area, election officials said they received a spate of complaints after voters began receiving phone calls incorrectly informing them their polling places had changed. In addition, unknown volunteers began showing up at voters' doors illegally offering to collect and deliver completed absentee ballots to the election office.

Jane Platten of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections said officials had not identified who is behind the tricks. ``We've never seen anything like this before, where there seems to be a concerted effort to give voters misinformation,'' she said.
Other tricks include:
  • telling people they can't vote if they haven't paid child support, having undercover "angry voters" yell out that lines are three hours long to discourage people from waiting and having aggressive supporters yell at voters who want to choose the opponent.
  • Nonpartisan election-protection groups and attorneys recruited by both the Bush and Kerry campaigns to patrol tight states also said groups are expected to send unregistered voters into crowded polling places to slow down the already long lines.
  • In Ohio's Franklin County, both registered Democrats and Republicans have been receiving phone calls from phony Board of Elections workers telling them that their polling places have been changed, said election officials.
  • Ohio Republican Party spokesman Jeff Flint added that Ohio Republicans have received calls telling them their absentee ballots will be picked up by election workers — a process that's illegal.
  • In West Dayton, Ohio, registered Democrats received calls reminding them to vote on Nov. 5 — three days after the election, according to Hagel.

More here:

This over at Daily Kos, from an Ohio phone bank volunteer:

I worked all day yesterday at the largest Toledo area Kerry GOTV phone bank at Gallon and Takacs law offices, 3516 Granite, Sylvania. Out of the 8 phone banks that we had here in the Toledo area yesterday, ours produced one third of all of the contacts made.

Both the local phone company and our phone systems provider have confirmed to us that phone relay point into the building was purposely severed. Many volunteers were rerouted to other locations and several also had to rely on cell phones when we found our lines down this morning. We thought it was a coincidence until the phone company verified to us that the lines were intentionally cut.
Gosh, and how do you think that might have happened?

 

10/28/04 [Permalink] UPDATE 10/31/04
More electoral fraud/dirty tricks in Ohio: letter claims voters registered by Democratic campaigns or NAACP have invalid registrations and cannot vote

Via Atrios, we have this story:

It is an outright case of election fraud in Lake County.

The phony letter says newly registered voters signed up by the Kerry or Capri Cafaro campaigns or the NAACP, their registrations are illegal and they will not be able to vote.

“That was not authorized by the Board of Elections, said Elections Director Jan Clair. “It was not mailed by the Lake County Board of Elections.”

A real board mailing would have Clair’s signature.

The letter was brought to election officials by Ron Colvin, a longtime registered voter and head of the Lake County NAACP.

Sheriff Dan Dunlap is investigating. “It will be a federal offense because you have interfered with the constitutionally protected right to vote,” he said.

Via Buzzflash, here is a copy of the letter at Lawgeek. Lawgeek has some comments here.

Reader dfandbj sent in this email:

Attached is copy of phony letter sent to newly registered voters in Lake County Ohio. Apparently whomever sent this letter had access to the Lake County BOE's new voter registration lists. Following is copy on report of this activity by WKYC TV, Cleveland. As this activity has received little publicity in Northeast Ohio, I e-mailed every Cleveland/Lake County and Ashtabula County radio station (because of spill-in) I could locate requesting that they issue a voter alert to include this item on their newscasts and call-in shows. Here's the e-mail list I used. Please post this on your site so other Ohio voters can contact these stations.

wzip@uakron.edu ; comments@wcpn.org ; tkogrady@wone.net ; jimmantelandthemorningcrew@wgar.com ; trapper@wdok.com ; robin@wdok.com ; jim@wdok.com ; WCRF@moody.eduDick [sic?] ; News Director ; lanigan@wmji.com ; malone@wmji.com ; wncx@wncx.com ; buzzard@wmms.com ; cliffbaechle@clearchannel.com ; MichaelKelly@ClearChannel.com ; tedklopp@clearchannel.com ; gregsaber@clearchannel.com ; judythompson@clearchannel.com ; darrentoms@clearchannel.com

 

10/25/04 [Permalink] UPDATED 12/14/04 
[Since there is a lot of material on this evolving issue, let me alert you that most recent material is towards the bottom of this post]

GOP voter suppression efforts in Ohio morph into another growing scandal with fraudulent challenges and angry citizens/voters - Federal courts nix GOP challenges

The GOP originally challenged about 35,000 registrations in Ohio - only to withdraw thousands of the claims because of self-described "errors" in their filings. Moreover, some of those challenged were homeless. The GOP also claimed over-registration fraud but the Election Board pointed out there is no evidence of fraud and that "inactive" voters have to be kept on the rolls for 4 years per the National Voter Registration Act. After mass protests, Ohio's GOP Sec. of State partially caved in with a "compromise" ruling that allows the challenged voters to cast provisional ballots. 
In the meantime, one of the GOP members who challenged the voters faces a possible indictment on felony charges for swearing she had personal knowledge about the voters being challenged when she had no knowledge whatsoever - by her own admission. The election board threw out another 976 challenges due to the latter incident. Another challenger turns out to be Megan Harrington, President of the College Republicans at the University of Toledo. She has been discovered to have challenged a voter based on a claim that he does not live where he claims he does, even though the voter actually does live at that address. Many others including some faculty at the University of Toledo were falsely challenged as well even though they were actually living at the very address the GOP claimed was not valid [NOTE: New Donkey points out that this type of vote challenge is a decades old GOP trick and Dailykos points out that that GOP settled a lawsuit agreeing to not indulge in this kind of vote suppression about two decades ago]. Many of those challenged are understandably angry at this nonsense. There is a possibility that some of those who were challenged may have been on the list since they were contributors to the Democratic party - but this needs further investigation. At least one voter was challenged under the pretext that she was dead, even though she was very much alive. It is quite clear these challengers have no morals whatsoever and need to be indicted or investigated, as appropriate. 

Here are a slew of updates on this growing scandal.

Via Corrente, here's an AP article:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- State Republicans withdrew thousands of more than 35,000 challenges to new voter registrations because of errors in their filings apparently caused by a computer glitch.

Republicans filed the challenges Friday in 65 of Ohio's 88 counties, saying mail sent to the newly registered voters was returned as undeliverable.

Over the weekend, the party withdrew about 4,700 challenges in Hamilton County because the names and addresses on the GOP list did not match voter rolls, and Franklin County officials in Columbus accepted 2,371 challenges, rejecting half of about 4,200 filed.

Challenged voters will be notified by mail that they are entitled to attend a hearing with proof of their address.

Even if they fail to show up, the elections board is not likely to throw out the registrations, said Matthew Damschroder, Franklin County's elections chief and a Republican. Doing so could violate the federal right to vote even if the voter has failed to notify elections officials of an address change, he said.

It is too late to file a new challenge under the statute the party used, John Williams, election director in Hamilton County, said Monday. There appeared to be an error in the database program used to print the challenges, so that addresses were not matched with the correct names, he said.

But the largest single batch of challenges, some 17,000 in Cuyahoga County, is still being processed because there were no errors, said Jane Platten, elections board spokeswoman.

CAP has more:

 According to ACORN, a non-profit group, "46 percent of the Republican challenges in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, were against black people, who represent only 27 percent of the county's population." (Don't let tactics like these keep you from the polls. Remember, if you don't vote, this election will not be stolen; it will be given away.)

THE MYTH OF VOTER FRAUD: The Republican talking points manipulate the facts to create a false impression of widespread voter fraud in key states. For example, appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie said that "If you look at Franklin County [Ohio]... a very important county in the election, there are 815,000 people according to the census, 18 or older eligible to vote. There are 845,000 registered voters." Gillespie suggests that the only way this can be explained is voter fraud. That isn't true. Federal law prohibits purging records of voters who have moved out of the state – or should otherwise not be on the rolls – for four years. So if there are more registered voters than eligible voters, that doesn't mean scores of people are attempting to commit fraud. It means the state is complying with the National Voter Registration Act.

THEY AREN'T COMMITTING VOTER FRAUD, THEY'RE IN IRAQ: Many of the people that Republicans are targeting in Ohio – claiming their addresses are invalid – "are overseas military members...whose mail cannot be forwarded." Among those challenged was "Lisa Potts, a longtime Marine currently stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C." Potts – a Republican – said, "I pay taxes to the state of Ohio every year."

VOTER FRAUD IS RARE: According to a new study by Demos finds that "election fraud is at most a minor problem across the 50 U.S. states, and does not affect election outcomes." For example, election officials in Arizona "say voter fraud involving undocumented immigrants is rare." Karen Osborne, Maricopa County's director of elections, said, "if we have one case a year, it's an amazement." Officials in Arizona are concerned that a new ballot measure – which would require proof of citizenship to vote – "could end up blocking legitimate voters from exercising their rights."

Via Hesiod, we have this report in the Washington Post (bold text is my emphasis):

Ohio's voter-registration rolls contain more than 120,000 duplicate names, and an untold number of ineligible voters, such as people who have moved out of the state. A review of the rolls by the Columbus Dispatch even found a murder victim and two suspected terrorists among the eligible.
...
The rules for challenging voters vary from state to state, and officials nationwide are bracing for an onslaught. In Ohio, the state GOP is drawing on a little-used 1953 law to file its pre-election challenges.

Ohio law states that a party can challenge a voter's eligibility if the challenger has a reasonable doubt that the person is a citizen, is at least 18, or is a legal resident of the state or the county where he shows up to vote. The law also states that local election boards must give voters challenged before Election Day three days' notice before holding a mandatory hearing, no later than two days before the election.

It is not clear, however, how election officials can hold so many hearings, or what they should do after them.

Gwen Dillingham, the Cuyahoga County deputy election director, said 15,000 to 18,000 pre-election challenges have been filed in the Cleveland area, a traditional Democratic stronghold. "I don't know how we're going to find those people to tell them there's a hearing," she said.

Republicans have pointed to what they contend is widespread evidence of fraud in voter registration. Making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, for instance, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie pointed out that in Franklin County, the latest Census shows there are more registered voters than there are age-eligible residents.

But election officials and other experts say there is a reasonable explanation for bloated election rolls that has nothing to do with fraud: The National Voter Registration Act prohibits them from purging voters from the rolls for four years after an initial notification is sent.

"It's unfortunate that there seems to be an assumption that there's fraud behind every problem," said Kay Maxwell, president of the League of Women Voters. "There often is a simple explanation. And we're very concerned that these challenges will intimidate people and keep them from voting."

Some boards, including those in the two counties that are home to the cities of Columbus and Dayton, are tossing out most of the GOP's pre-election challenges because the party made technical errors in filing them.

Of the 4,200 challenges filed in Franklin County, officials have determined that 1,600 are valid. Election Board Director Matthew M. Damschroder, a Republican, said that his board will hold the required hearings on the challenges that remain, but will more than likely keep every voter on the rolls and allow those voters to cast provisional ballots.

One irony of the GOP's challenges in Franklin County and Montgomery County is that many of those challenged are overseas military members -- often Republican supporters -- whose mail cannot be forwarded, officials in both counties said.

Although Ohio law specifies that removing a successfully challenged voter from the rolls is an option, that conflicts with the rules laid out by the National Voter Registration Act. Moreover, local Ohio election boards are bipartisan, with two Republican members and two Democrats, leaving the potential for deadlocks.

UPDATE 10/28/04

Hypothetically Speaking noted this first:

The wheels may be about to fall off of the Ohio Republican Party's challenge to over 35,000 voter registrations in Ohio.

A story in Enquirer indicates that the GOP mishandled the data and mailing lists of new voter registrants and that these screw ups are behind many (maybe most) of the "questionable" voter registrations.

The controversy started when the GOP sent a mailing to over 230,000 new voters in 65 counties. Allegedly, about 35,000 of these mailings could not be delivered. Ohio GOP chairman and others blamed ACORN, ACT, MoveON, the unions and others for "massive and systemic voter registration fraud" and on Friday announced that they would launch challenges against these 35,000 in each of the county Board of Election.

On Saturday, the Hamilton County Board of Election examined the over 5,000 returned mailers from that region. Lo and behold, instead of fraud, the BOE found that the GOP had mismatched the names and addresses of the recipients.

Not that they had a lot of choice, but the GOP screw-ups are so bad that Bennett had to announce that it will drop all of their challenges in Hamilton County.

An update here:

The Dayton Daily News reports that 90% of the Republican voter registration challenges in Montgomery County are invalid, including one case involving Army master sergeant Surjo Banerjee who has been fighting in Iraq for about a hear:
Local board of elections officials believe the Republican Party challenged Banerjee's registration because board mail sent to him in Centerville was returned undelivered since he was in Iraq. Board records also include a June request from Banerjee for an absentee ballot, which last month was sent to him in Iraq.

It's still not clear exactly what all the problems are that are underlying Ohio Republican Party's bumbling effort to get these challenges to stick. There is agreement by everyone that the challenge forms used by the ORP were filled out incorrectly in many if not most cases and contain wrong information such as mixed up precincts. This still leaves open the question of whether the original mailings by the ORP were also mixed up since copies of the returns have not been shared with the boards of elections.

Another update here:

At the same time, the Plain Dealer reports that over 9,000 of the 17,780 challenges in Franklin Co. have to do with "inactive" voters. HAVA does not permit inactive voters from being purged from voter rolls unless they skip two presidential elections and don't respond to notices from the local board of election. Besides general disenfranchisement, challenges based on "inactive" status have the affect of suppressing the African American vote. Again, according the Plain Dealer:  

But one voter-registration group, ACORN, said the GOP list disproportionately affects black voters. An analysis by the group found that nearly half of the voters challenged were in largely black Cleveland neighborhoods, said Jack Pannell, an ACORN spokesman. Voters in those neighborhoods typically vote for Democratic candidates.

Ohioans and other supporters need to be bombarding their newspapers, radio stations and TV stations about this.

The latest update here:

Regarding the hearings the various Ohio county boards of elections were being forced to hold because of the Republican's bogus challenges to voter registration, WBNS-TV reports:
The US District Court has issued a temporary restraining order, which will result in the calling off of several hearings that were slated to begin Thursday on the subject.

In Franklin County, 2,400 people, 35,000 overall, received notices that there was a problem with their voter registration forms.

Republicans say that they are trying to prevent voter fraud with the challenge, but Democrats say Republicans are trying to suppress the vote.

Some local board of elections officials say they are happy with the decision.

Matt Damschroder with the Franklin County Board of Elections says, "My preference would be to let this thing completely go away and allow individuals to vote on Election Day. It allows for a smoother administration of elections."

The decision could be appealed by Republicans to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. That appeal would have to be made by Wednesday night.
This may be a short-term victory because the GOP will probably appeal, and they have already stated that they will still make these challenges at the poll sites on election day.

Some of those challenged were homeless.

Also in Franklin County, 291 homeless people are being questioned out of the 2,370 total challenges, according to an analysis of the challenges by the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. In Cuyahoga County, 757 people of the 17,717 total being challenged are homeless.

"We're very concerned that people that have chosen to participate in our democratic process, who took a big step in registering to vote and who were poised to go to the polls on Nov. 2, are going to be disenfranchised, and we may never get them back," said Bill Faith, COHHIO executive director.

Mary Sullivan, 57, looked for work for a year after losing her job as a receptionist and prescription filler for a local drug maker in August 2003. She was evicted from her apartment after her money ran out this past June and spent two months at Friends of the Homeless, a shelter on Columbus' east side.

"My vote has to be counted," Sullivan said. "Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you're stupid."

Here's G35Guy at Dailykos with an update:

Blackwell has caved into pressure (including a protest at his office of over 1000 people) and now says provisional ballots should be allowed to be cast.

Blackwell issued a directive Tuesday ... outlining the procedure for hearing the challenges. He essentially told election boards to let any of the people whose registrations are challenged cast a provisional ballot if they show up at a poll Nov. 2.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/10025402.htm

Summit County Board of Elections Director Bryan Williams said he believes the order does a good job of balancing state and federal voting rights laws. ``I think that this directive properly recognizes that since this is a federal election, these challenges can happen, but you still have to protect the person's right to vote,'' he said.
...
Williams said he has begun hearing from some of the 976 Summit County registrants being challenged. Their hearing notices were mailed Sunday.

``We've gotten a number of calls -- about 30 of them,'' Williams said. He said some of the challenged registrants appear to be college students, and the board has been instructing them to send in identification and proof of residence if they cannot attend their hearing.

MyDD has an important update (bold text is my emphasis):

The Republicans have been compiling lists (probably in the tens of thousands) of voters whom they have culled from lists of those newly registered, mailing registered mail to them, preparing lists of those who did not accept the Republican Party mailing, and then challenging their right to vote.

Here's one such incident that's been exposed in Ohio: 

ELECTION BOARD THROWS OUT 976 CHALLENGES BY REPUBLICAN PARTY

GOP Challenger Barbara Miller Could be Indicted on Felony Charges

AKRON, Ohio - The Summit County Board of Elections abruptly threw out 976 challenges of voter eligibility by the Republican Party today after Barbara Miller, the challenger, revealed that she did not have any personal information about the eligibility of any of the challenged voters.
Instead, Miller said that her challenges were based on a list of "undeliverable mail" given to her by the Republican Party. The list was based on a GOP mailing sent to registered voters throughout the state of Ohio.
After Miller presented this as her evidence, Russell Pry, Summit County Election Board member, told her that she could be indicted for signing a sworn challenge without any personal knowledge about the eligibility of the voters. Miller's reaction was to plead the Fifth Amendment.
Catherine Herold, the first voter challenged at the hearing, told the board that she believes that she was on the undeliverable list because she "refused the letter when she saw that it came from the Republican Party." She and many others expressed anger that their eligibility had been challenged - which could force them to vote by provisional ballot on Nov. 2.
"This is an outrage," Herold said. "I feel as if I am being called a liar for claiming to live at my address."
The Summit County Board of Elections has indicated that they plan to call in the Department of Justice to conduct a criminal investigation of the challenges.
Following is an excerpt from a transcript of today's hearing (for email copies contact Emilie Karrick). Catherine Herold and Neil Klingshirn, attorney for several of the challenged voters, are available for interviews.

Blogwood has more on the above incident.

Another case reported by Suicide Girls, via Atrios (bold text is my emphasis):

Former SG member Doctashock, a resident of Toledo, Ohio, in Lucas County, has received notice that the validity of his voter registration is being challenged, and that he will have to appear in court this Saturday to answer the challenge or be denied the right to vote.

Who challenged him? One Megan Harrington, President of the College Republicans at the University of Toledo.

Miss Harrington is heavily involved with the GOP, as demonstrated by this PBS article quoting her reaction to the Presidential debates:

Megan Harrington, president of the College Republicans and a sophomore majoring in political science, watched the debate at the Republican Victory Center in Maumee.

"Bush was consistent with his statements," Harrington said.

"Everybody knows where he stands, especially on national security and the Iraq War."

On what grounds is his registration being challenged?

They say he doesn't live where he lives. How the f***, then, did he receive these letters?

Letter one.

Letter two.

Doctashock registered as an Independent, and, for the record, he says that he does not live in a predominantly black neighborhood. However, he is an African American, with a name (Jermaine) that is common among African Americans. Makes you wonder why his registration was among those selected to be challenged, considering that 90% of blacks (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents) voted for Al Gore in 2000.

Doctashock will show up in court to defend his right to vote. How many won't?

Miss Harrington can be reached at: utcr2004@yahoo.com or at megan.harrington@toledo.edu

Update: Doctashock is not a college student, and his driver's license does match his home address, and is the same address he registered at.

This outrage needs to be prosecuted. Additionally, Atrios says this (which I've not been able to confirm independently, but if true only adds to the outrage):

...wow, I didn't realize this is all based on *registered* mail.

Another update from Atrios:

I sure as hell wouldn't accept a registered letter from the Republican party, and I definitely wouldn't bother to stand in line for an hour at my post office to pick it up if I wasn't home to get it. Let's see some prosecutions, damnit.
When Catherine Herold received mail from the Ohio Republican Party earlier this year, she refused it.

The longtime Barberton Democrat wanted no part of the mailing and figured that by refusing it, the GOP would have to pay the return postage.

What she didn't count on was the returned mail being used to challenge the validity of her voter registration.

Herold,who is assistant to the senior vice president and provost at the University of Akron,was one of 976 Summit County voters whose registrations were challenged last week by local Republicans on behalf of the state party.

...

The challengers, all older longtime Republicans -- Barbara Miller, Howard Calhoun, Madge Doerler and Louis Wray -- were subpoenaed by the elections board and were present at the hearings. Akron attorney Jack Morrison, a Republican, volunteered to represent the four.

Democratic board member Russ Pry suggested that the four could be subject to criminal prosecution for essentially making false claims on the challenge forms. The form states that making a false claim is subject to prosecution as a fifth-degree felony.

...The angry voters had the Republicans on the defensive.

``Why'd you do it?'' one challenged voter shouted out at Calhoun. ``Who the hell are you?'' the man asked.

``What the hell do you care?'' replied Calhoun, an attorney.
What the hell do you care? What a monster.

QUICK UPDATE 10/31/04 
Looks like Ms. Harrington, who has destroyed the privacy of innocent, legitimate voters with false charges, is none too pleased with her (publicly available information) being circulated! Atrios has this note:

Monkey Mail

Funny:
In reference to your website, I am here to tell you to take
down the e-mail address of Megan Harrington. That is
invasion of privacy, and defamation, and if it is not off in
twenty-fours hours, the proper authorities will be contacted
to remove your website. To use someone's e-mail without
their reference is invasion of privacy, and I hope you
realize that.
In reference to this, presumably.

Ms. Harrington's email can be found at georgewbush.com site as well as the University of Toledo Young Republicans site...

UPDATE 10/30/04

Reader EN sends in this article on this growing outrage (bold text is my emphasis):

Two University of Toledo psychology professors believe challenges to their voter registrations just days before the election are politically motivated.

"University professors tend to be more liberal and Democratic, if that was a reason why some of us was targeted," said Alex Czopp. "The Pre-Election Challenge uses a little known and seldom used Ohio law that says any registered voter can challenge the legitimacy of another's voter registration.

"I can show you my voter registration. I got it the first week in September, said Alice Frye." Alice Frye and Alex Czopp received notices from the Lucas County Board of Elections alleging the two did not live at the addresses listed on their voter registrations.

Both Frye and Czopp registered along with their spouses, listing the same respective addresses. Neither of their spouses' registrations were challenged. "My husband and I have both donated money to the Democratic Party. All the money donated has been in my name. We have different last names. We are registered to vote at the same address. My registration is being challenged. His is not, said Frye."

Czopp finds irony in the pre election challenges. "They mailed the letter that was protesting whether I lived at this current address to this current address," said Czopp

Both voters plan to attend an 11:00am Board of Elections hearing Saturday morning at Government Center. Challenged voters will have a change to have those pre election challenges overturned.

He also wrote this (bold text is my emphasis):

Six Republicans, including one University of Toledo Republican student leader, have challenged the voting rights of over 930 citizens. The list includes soldiers currently serving in Iraq, a military recruitment officer, a UT student who is a Bush/Cheney volunteer, and at least four University of Toledo professors. It includes my wife. My wife and I live at the same place and registered around the same time. She was challenged and I was not. If any mail was truly sent out and returned, the supposed basis for this challenge, I should have received such a letter but never did. This shows that their challenging process is flawed and that other factors determined their selection--perhaps because my wife donated to the DNC (publicly available information) but I had not? Her challenger does not even live in Toledo but in Waterville, Ohio. She never tried to contact us. She knows nothing about us, we have never met or heard of her, and yet she saw fit to issue a totally unjustified challenge. We have had to take time out of our lives to deal with a fri