Stolen Election 2004: Wednesday Update

BUSTED! Conyers calls the FBI to investigate Triad (courtesy of Ray Beckerman) - which finally gets the attention of the NY Times, although they only manage to get about one-third of this particular story, let alone the whole Ohio recount.

Lawmaker Seeks Inquiry Into Ohio Vote
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: December 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/politics/15ohio.html

The ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, plans to ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a county prosecutor in Ohio today to explore "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering" in at least one and perhaps several Ohio counties.

The request for an investigation, made in a letter that was also provided to The New York Times, includes accounts from at least two county employees, but is based largely on a sworn affidavit provided by the Hocking County deputy director of elections, Sherole Eaton. 

Among other things, Ms. Eaton says in her affidavit that a representative of Triad Governmental Systems, the Ohio firm that created and maintains the vote-counting software in dozens of Ohio counties, made several adjustments to the Hocking County tabulator last Friday, in advance of the state's recount, which is taking place this week.

Actually, she says the technician took the whole tabulating computer apart along with its backup, swapped some parts, and put it back together. That's slightly more extreme than an "adjustment," wouldn't you say? I'd say it's the difference between an office visit to a chiropractor - and heart transplant surgery.

Ohio recount rules require that only 3 percent of a county's votes be tallied by hand, and typically one or more whole precincts are selected and combined to get the 3 percent sample. After the hand count, the sample is fed into the tabulator. If there is no discrepancy, the remaining ballots can be counted by the machine. Otherwise, a hand recount must be done for the whole county.

Ms. Eaton contends that the Triad employee asked which precinct Hocking County planned to count as its representative 3 percent, and, upon being told, made further adjustments to the machine.

He also told the employees to write down the original results from those precincts, then recount the votes, then report the original results if they disagreed with the recount results! Here's her affidavit: "He advised Lisa and I on how to post a "cheat sheet" on the wall so that only the board members and staff would know about it and and what the codes meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."

Hey Zeller - isn't that "fit to print"?

County officials decided to use a different precinct when the recount was done yesterday. No discrepancies were found.

"This is pretty outrageous," Mr. Conyers said. "We want to pursue it as vigorously as we can."

You go, Conyers!

But Brett Rapp, the president of Triad, said that although it would be unusual for an employee to ask about a specific precinct,

And would Rapp consider it "unusual" to tell election officials to ignore the recount results and re-use the original results instead?

preparing the machines for a recount was standard procedure and was done in all 41 counties where Triad handles vote counts.

How exactly does Triad "prepare" machines for a recount? Hey Zeller, isn't that worth a sentence or two? duke1983 at DailyKos actually interviewed Triad president Brett Rapp and got an explanation.

He added that he welcomed any investigation.

Excellent! Because there will certainly be one!

"I've been doing this since 1985, and in all my experience this is the first time that we have had any complaints whatsoever," Mr. Rapp said.

Hmm - maybe we need to look at the results of previous Triad "recounts"...

Now what else did the Times not consider "fit to print"?

1. John Conyers told the FBI that Triad's actions potentially broke several fundamental federal and state laws.

First, this course of conduct would appear to violate several provisions of federal law, in addition to the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. 42 U.S.C. §1973 provides for criminal penalties against any person who, in any election for federal office, "knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by . . . the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held."

The Triad technician, Michael Barbian, was clearly conspiring to tabulate false results by proposing the use of a "cheat sheet."

42 U.S.C. § 1974 also requires the retention and preservation, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of a federal election, of all voting records and papers and makes it a felony for any person to "willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter" any such record.

It's unclear whether the tabulating machine is a "record or paper," but that's certainly arguable. And as machines replace paper ballots, the laws certainly need to be made explicit on this question.

Further, any tampering with ballots and/or election machinery would violate the constitutional rights of all citizens to vote and have their votes properly counted, as guaranteed by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I'm not sure about this one. As the Supreme Court's Republican majority made clear in Bush v. Gore, we have no Constitutional right to vote for President - which is why Conyers and the rest of the Democrats need to support Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Constitutional Amendment explicitly giving Americans the right to vote.

Second, the course of conduct would also appear to violate several provisions of Ohio law. No less than 4 provisions of the Ohio Revised Code make it a felony to tamper with or destroy election records or machines. Clearly, modifying election equipment in order to make sure that the hand count matches the machine count would appear to fall within these proscriptions.

It's inaccurate to argue Barbian rigged the tabulator so a recount would produce the same tally as the original count. If that was Barbian's felonious plan, he would not have needed to tell Eaton to write down the original results and ignore the recount result if it was different. Barbian's tampering implies a different vote-rigging scheme - programming the tabulator to "flip" votes from Kerry to Bush, like the program Clint Curtis wrote for Tom Feeney.

Moreover, bringing in Triad officials into other Ohio Counties would also appear to violate Ohio Revised Code § 3505.32 which provides that during a period of official canvassing, all interaction with ballots must be "in the presence of all of the members of the board and any other persons who are entitled to witness the official canvass," given that last Friday, the Ohio Secretary of State has issued orders to the effect that election officials are to treat all election materials as if they were in a period of canvassing, and that "Teams of one Democrat and one Republican must be present with ballots at all times of processing."

LoL! That's hoisting Blackwell on his own petard!

2. John Conyers told the FBI that Triad is a Republican-controlled company - and it played a crucial role in stealing the 2000 Election for George W. Bush.

Third, it is important to recognize that the companies implicated in the wrongdoing, Triad and its affiliates, are the leading suppliers of voting machines involving the counting of paper ballots and punch cards in the critical states of Ohio and Florida. Triad is controlled by the Rapp family, and its founder Tod A. Rapp has been a consistent contributor to Republican causes.

Tod Rapp gave $500 to George W. Bush in 2004 and $1,650 to Republican committees since 1999. He gave $0 to John Kerry and the Democrats. Is this not fit to print? Just imagine the furor on FOX et al if Bush was seeking a recount and Rapp had given exclusively to Kerry and the Democrats! By ignoring this key fact, the Times once again shows its Republican bias.

A Triad affiliate, Psephos corporation, supplied the notorious butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the 2000 presidential election.

The butterfly ballot absolutely cost Gore the 2000 election and put George W. Bush in the White House - another fact the Times refuses to print.

3. Triad machines tabulate the punch card results in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties.

Here's the map, courtesy of Truthout:

Did Triad employees engage in similar criminal acts in any of these other counties? And what about other vendors? Here's a disturbing new report from Toledo, courtesy of Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman:

Similar sworn testimony surfaced Tuesday at a citizens' hearing in Toledo. Among other things eye witnesses confirmed that a Diebold programming team entered the Lucas County (Toledo) Board of Elections to "reprogram" the opti-scan voting machines on the day the recount began.

Catherine Buchanan, a Democratic Party observer, testified that one of the sample precincts chosen as a control for the recount---Sylvania Precinct 3---had the programming card reprogrammed prior to the ballot testing. While the observers watched, nearly seven out of fifteen test ballots were rejected at least three times before the machine would read them.

Janet Albright told hearing officers she had been voting at the same Lucas County polling place for fourteen years but that the polling place was changed this year without notification to a station farther away. Machines throughout Lucas County malfunctioned in tests through the week prior to the election, and on election day. Thousands of Ohioans---primarily in Democratic precincts--thus lost their right to vote.

During the Lucas County reprogramming, election observers were shocked when they were denied the right to look at sheets that had target test results on them, or the reprogramming of the opti-scan machines used in the recount. Diebold-leased machines and software malfunctioned in the weeks prior to the election.

Hopefully Conyers will also bring this report to the attention of the FBI - and the NY Times.

Keith Olbermann points out that calling the FBI is a good way to get the attention of the mainstream media, whose neglect of Ohio fraud he now attributes to "passivity." (He previously called reporters "lazy.")

Mr. Conyers has succeeded in dragging parts of the voting story into the mainstream: the GAO, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and possibly the FBI. This underscores a point I made here some time ago: that what was understandably misinterpreted as a "media lockdown" is much more likely to have been media passivity. Senator Kerry conceded, therefore Ohio couldn’t change the election, therefore reporters go elsewhere. Many political reporters respond to accusations by one party against the other— the ‘Theysaidthat’ factor— and tend not to awaken unless they see both dogs growling.

Throw the Senior Democrat on Judiciary, and Jesse Jackson, and the letters “FBI” into the mix— and presto, you get mainstream media attention.

Olbermann's observation leads us to give this advice to truthseekers: don't try to convince "passive" reporters with boring facts - just growl like a dog. If your growl doesn't work, get a pit bull.

Here's another matter Conyers should refer to the FBI: the attempted murder of Ohio recount leader Katrina Sumner, one of two women who exposed Ken Blackwell's outrageous (and illegal) decision to lock down the ballots in Greene county.

Last night I was returning from Columbus and was scared out of my mind. First I’ve been getting calls from a man that has been able to tell me each and every place I’ve been or roads I’ve been traveling on (a group of 3 other women heard this while driving me to meet Jesse Jackson and Cliff Arnebeck last night, having the call on speaker). Then while driving back I was ran off the road by two dark blue Suburbans(?), bigger than 4 runners anyway, with dark tinted windows. They came up behind me with their brights on and then one came to the side of me and ran me into the ditch off I-70. I saw as they sped away that one had a Maryland license plate, but in the heat of it all I couldn’t get the plate number or even see the plate of the other one. It’s becoming apparent to me that someone is not liking what I’m doing. So thank you much cause I truly need the encouraging words.

Hopefully the FBI will give Conyers better answers than those he's getting from Ken Blackwell, who refused to answer any of the 36 questions Conyers and his committee sent Blackwell on December 2. Conyers fired off another letter yesterday:

I am in receipt of your December 14 response to the letter I, and eleven other Members of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to you on December 2. Frankly, I find your response disappointing and unacceptable and I am dismayed that it took nearly two weeks for you to proffer a letter that does not respond to a single one of our 36 questions.

In light of comments made by your spokesman, your decision to not respond to a single question we posed to you is surprising. Your spokesman had led the media to believe you would be “more than happy to fill in the gaps” for us’ and that “most” issued had already been explained in “news reports.“* I have yet to see answers to any of our 36 questions in news reports or anywhere else and I was very much looking forward to your assistance in locating such reports...

Your refusal to answer the 36 questions we posed to you is unfortunate and part of a pattern of decisions that have worked to obstruct and stonewall a search for the truth about Ohio voting irregularities. If these allegations are as obviously baseless as you have claimed, it would seem that you could perform a public service by dispelling them. The voters deserve no less.

Of course, a long-distance relationship is not always the best way to communicate. So on December 6, former Rep. Dan Hamburg (D-CA) and his wife Carrie Hamburg went right to Blackwell's office to get his answers to Conyers' questions. Here's the Hamburgs' story (courtesy of Ray Beckerman) - which ultimately resulted in their arrest for drinking orange juice in the Borden Building - where apparently it's a crime to drink anything but Borden's milk.

From the moment we presented identification (God forbid anyone should try to pass go anywhere in post-9/11 America without picture identification!), there was trouble. Private security officers, having noted that there was a thoroughly peaceful picket on the sidewalk in front of the building, moved in to discourage us to pass through the now-omnipresent metal detectors and on to the elevators. However, we breezed past them, found an elevator and whom should we find on the same elevator that we were taking but J. Kenneth Blackwell himself.

“Hello, Mr. Secretary.” I said. “I’m former congressman Dan Hamburg from California. We have a letter for you, requesting that you recuse yourself from the upcoming recount of Ohio’s presidential vote. We have also raised several other issues that need your attention immediately.” Blackwell quickly launched into a blustering monologue about how we didn’t understand Ohio law because if we did, we’d know that he had nothing to do with counting the votes. With the floors whizzing by, my wife Carrie asked Blackwell whether he thought there might be at least the appearance of a conflict of interest in his serving as both final arbiter of the vote and as co-chair of Ohio Bush/Cheney. Blackwell frowned, the elevator door opened, he made a beeline for his private office and disappeared behind glass and steel.

However, we were far from alone. There to meet us as we stepped out was a phalanx of law enforcement and security officers—Columbus Police, Ohio Highway Patrol, Borden Building security, and several husky plainclothesmen. All seemed to feel the same way about any further attempts at interaction with Mr. Blackwell or his staff.

Blackwell's utter contempt for democracy needs to be dealt with immediately. Does Ohio law permit an election to recall the Secretary of State? If you know the answer, please post it below.

The Washington Post sent two reporters in Ohio, Michael Powell and Peter Slevin. Their first article examines "lost votes", especially among black voters.

Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio
By Michael Powell and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page A01

Electoral problems prevented many thousands of Ohioans from voting on Nov. 2. In Columbus, bipartisan estimates say that 5,000 to 15,000 frustrated voters turned away without casting ballots. It is unlikely that such "lost" voters would have changed the election result -- Ohio tipped to President Bush by a 118,000-vote margin and cemented his electoral college majority.

But similar problems occurred across the state and fueled protest marches and demands for a recount. The foul-ups appeared particularly acute in Democratic-leaning districts, according to interviews with voters, poll workers, election observers and election board and party officials, as well as an examination of precinct voting patterns in several cities.

Most of the information in this article, while good and important, has been documented before. But this is new info to me, regarding the plans by different counties to deal with the expected surge of voters and the obvious need for additional machines.

In Cuyahoga County [Cleveland], officials decided to quickly rent hundreds of additional voting machines...

In voter-rich Franklin County, which encompasses the state capital of Columbus, election officials decided to make do with 2,866 machines, even though their analysis showed that the county needed 5,000 machines.

"Does it make any sense to purchase more machines just for one election?" asked Michael R. Hackett, deputy director of the Board of Elections. "I'll give you the answer: no."

Which raises the obvious question: If Cleveland could rent additional machines, why not Columbus (and other counties)?

Finally, here are some quick comments on non-Ohio topics:

• Republican Senators are threatening to use the "nuclear option" to override Democratic filibusters of evil Republican judges. Why don't Democratic Senators respond by threatening to use the "Gingrich option" - shutting down the government? It won't matter - the Busheviks have purged anyone who was doing an honest job anyway. And while they're not wasting their time on the Senate floor, they could devote their full time to investigating Republican corruption.
• Bernard Kerik's use of an apartment overlooking Ground Zero to screw Judith Regan is the perfect metaphor for George Bush's use of a convention overlooking Ground Zero to screw America.
• Rightwing anti-feminists like Laura Ingraham believe feminists are embittered women who hate men because they can't get a date. So isn't it delicious that Ingraham - who once showed off her long lithe legs in a tiger miniskirt on the cover of the NY Times Magazine - is so loathsome to men that she has to advertise on Match.com?
• I'm all for demanding equal time on Sinclair's "The Point," which is the focus of a well-coordinated campaign by progressive media activist groups at SinclairAction.com. But why don't those groups get serious and organize an advertiser boycott at Sinclair - and FOX and Clearchannel too!