Prosecutor to probe Cuyahoga County recount
 

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/11352898.htm

2 written complaints allege problems in '04 presidential election

By Stephen Dyer

Beacon Journal staff writer


CLEVELAND - Erie County Prosecutor Kevin J. Baxter is investigating whether the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections broke the law in its recount of ballots from the November presidential election.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason appointed Baxter as a special prosecutor in the case because the board of elections is Mason's client, which could pose a conflict of interest, said Mason spokeswoman Jamie Dalton.

Baxter said he didn't know yet whether the allegations have any validity. He said his investigators will begin interviewing people in the next several weeks.

``If it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere,'' Baxter said. ``We'll just start from the beginning... This is rather preliminary.''

The probe stems from two requests written to Mason: one from minor-party presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik, and another from entrepreneurial consultant Edward Michael Caner.

Dalton said Mason turned over the papers March 2.

The complaints allege that the board violated state law because the precincts it recounted were neither randomly selected nor was the opening of ballots properly witnessed.

In addition, Cobb and Badnarik allege that there were problems with the board's ballot-transfer cases, which can reveal whether the precinct used the ballots assigned to it or whether ballots from other precincts were used.

Finally, they contend that the county's vote-tabulation machines were used improperly and that discrepancies exist between the certified recount and the certified original vote.

All this was done to cover up problems in the November vote and ensure that no hand-recount would have to be done around the county, the letter from Cobb and Badnarik alleges.

Board's response

Michael Vu, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, declined to comment on specifics of the case but said ``we will cooperate fully with the Erie County prosecutor.''

Vu said the elections procedure ``needs to be a transparent process.''

The board's elections coordinator, Jacqui Maiden, told the board in its Feb. 8 meeting that the recount was handled based on a recount of a Garfield Heights Municipal Court judge election from 1981 and that the procedures used in November ``are the same that has been used in the past.''

The procedure Maiden cited included picking 3 percent of the precincts for a hand count, but the meeting minutes didn't indicate whether the board picked the 3 percent at random.

According to the complaint filed by both the candidates and their lawyer, Richard Kerger of Toledo, the board did not randomly select 3 percent of the county's precincts to recount, as required by state law. Instead, the county selected recount precincts only from among those with 550 voters or more, which eliminated 90 percent of the county's precincts, according to the letter.

As Caner put it in his shorter e-mail: ``This is similar to randomly drawing a card out of a deck, but before doing so, eliminating all suits but hearts.''

In addition, the candidates' letter contends that the way the precincts were chosen seems ``to be of a special sort: those in which (U.S. Sen. John) Kerry received either his largest or second largest number of votes in the ward. This meant that precincts in which (President) Bush received an unusually high number of votes could not be examined, nor could the precincts in which the third-party candidates received unusually high vote totals.''

The letter said there is no way this phenomenon happened at random.

More allegations

The letter alleges that Maiden admitted in a Dec. 22 meeting that ``ballots in selected precincts had been opened without the presence of witnesses and had been sorted and hand counted in advance of the original recount'' -- setting up a test-run to assure that the recount would comport closely with the original count so that a full hand count wouldn't have to be conducted.

As for the transfer-case problem, the letter alleges that on Dec. 17, a number of precincts were found to have had problems -- namely some ballots assigned to one precinct were used in another, or too many or too few ballots were used.

The letter suggested that ``the (election) staff had been assigned to clean-up the tell-tale evidence of election irregularities within the cases.''

Kerger said Thursday that Cuyahoga County was the only county to receive a letter like the one he referred to Mason's office. He said generally he understands that county boards of elections, mostly made up of volunteers, aren't going to run perfect elections. ``If we hold the Super Bowl every four years, we wouldn't expect the referees to be perfect,'' he said.

However, what he found in Cuyahoga County was different. There ``it seemed to be more than just a mistake,'' he said.

Veeeeeery interesting. Thanks for posting, I'll be interested in what they find out.

"The letter said there is no way this phenomenon happened at random"

And five months later...
 

it gets investigated? WHY did it take so long? Meanwhile anyone who discusses election fraud is a "lunatic". :distress: I hope they find the evidence they need to prosecute some people. I'm so sick of them feeling like they can get away with this bullsh*t.

Beating a dead horse into the ground....

you are one to talk in your state :laugh:

Coming from a Republican, such a comment doesn't hold much weight...

I was waiting for the first stake in my heart, LOL. At least Jason had the decensy to put the silencer on his gun before taking a shot! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

~Alex

Especially since the horse ain't dead.

I'm not one to beat around the bush, dear. :o :laugh:

I know you're content with having a murderous thug holding the highest office in the land, but the other half of the country isn't. If he got that office by screwing with the voting system, we have a right to know. I wholeheartedly believe they stole this election just like in 2000. Methinks you just don't like hearing any of this stuff about voter fraud because you know it's true, as all Republicans do. It must truly suck to have a candidate who got into office twice by ****ing with votes instead of actually being elected.

As for beating a dead horse, look no further than the party you affiliate yourself with.

And let me just state for the record (and you knew I would go here :laugh: ) - all and I mean ALL incidences of voter fraud should be investigated be they R or D in nature. I mean there were allegations in NYC that the D's were up to their ole tricks and what some states (R and D) did to Nader was just wrong and I detest Nader in politics.

It just bothers me when people assume it is only the R's that ever mes with votes. That is crap.

I think Gore tried a method of voter fraud when he initially requested only recounts in the areas he though he had a chance in when there was some evidence of it statewide. He only requested a statewide recount, which W wisely fought, after he saw he had a chance statewide in Florida.

Politics is a sleazy affair.

hee hee...the word "probe" is in the title of this post....probe...hee hee

We've been over this a thousand times. Gore could only ask for recounts in certain areas.
He didn't cheat, he got f*cked over by the Bush crime family.
Here's the thread for your perusal with (again) :rolleyes: the excerpt from the David Margolick Vanity Fair Article that addresses this issue. Please stop spreading this lie.
http://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showth...avid+Margolick

I stand by my post #27 in that thread. Legally it is correct.

But, I am not about to get into this again :cool:

That reminds me, GDW, what do you think of the flat 15% tax? :D

You said it perfectly. :) We're not living in a Democracy anymore, some shady **** happened on election day and some very shady **** happened during the "recount". In four short years this country has turned into a fascist theocracy. Until recently, I was never able to comprehend how the Nazis were able to gain power in Germany, it was just amazing to me that it could happen. Now, with the neo-cons in congress, in the White House and soon to be in the Supreme Court, I see exactly how it can happen.

ITA - and I know people get pissed at me for saying this, but the D's are ineffective in stopping them and in fact often join them for whatever insignificant reason they can come up with - see Defense of Marriage act signed by William Jefferson Clinton. What I would not have given for Kerry to have grown a set and faced off to W with a finger in the face and said "look you ****ing [CAT] - at least I VOLUNTEERED to go to Nam - while you were working on some fu**tard campaign in the safety of whitebread AL, where no one - DO YOU HEAR NO FU**ING ONE - remembers you were. So, you and that a$$hole Rove can take that fact and shove it straight up your uptight and corrupt assess and if you lie about me again, I am going to beat the **** out of you."

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Edited to bleep

Love what you said here.
Ueducated Masses + Religious Sloganism + Bad Economy + Heinous Corruption + Gov't/Corporation Controlled Media Propoganda = Fascism. :) A quick history lesson using mathematics, for y'all.

I was VERY disapointed in Kerry, I kind of liked the guy but his campaign was PATHETIC! Beating Bush should have been a piece of cake.

Ha! I forgot about the media, they're definitely an accomplice in all of this. If they would do their job, the neo-cons would have a much tougher time taking over the world!

they can't do their job, neocons/corporations own them. :D

I know this is unpopular, but I think the media reported everything - they even showed body bags :shrug: I get that they complained that they were told to tone it down, but through them everyone knows Iraq was based on a lie and W and crewe facilitated that lie by making the CIA and other sources give them what they wanted to hear. Everyone knows W and Co. were cuaght with their pants down prior to 9/11 in that they basically ignored Al-Q as a threat and focused in SH, which they later ousted not learning their lesson. Everyone knows our soldiers (though certainly not all) we instructed to torture and did so with glee as evidenced by the photos. Everyone knows W's SSA reforms are anything but that. Everyone knows we have a HUGE mess on our hands in Iraq. The media (both print and live) reported all of this and many outlets screamed it - the studies and surveys support that people knew about all of these things via the media. Thus, I do not buy into the media is responsible for the current state of affairs. I think the problem is with the American public who would rather hate all Arabs and fags than look at the facts or blame the real people (W and crewe) for the current state of affairs. Sad - but very true.

It was Kerry's to lose. I give Rove his due - though I cannot stand him and think he is a liar, a cheat, and a fraud - his immoral manipulation of the media and public was politics at its best. Again, he took the light off of all of W's horrid mistakes and put it squarely on two things: 1. Fags - God will hate you if you vote for the D's because they are Fag lovers and fags are soely responsible for the pathetic state of America and its Godless existence and 2. God has ordained W to fight Arabs, which America seemingly mostly lumps into one big threat, which I submit is why something like 70% of America still thinks SH attacked us on 9/11 :shrug: They make me sick.

On edit - I think Kerry's playing to the middle almost won him the election. Voter fraud issues aside, Kerry damn near won Ohio and Florida, either of which I believe could have gotten him in the WH. So, while I disagree with his methods, they almost worked :shrug: But given W's incompetency, Kerry should have won by a large margin.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

All you are doing is regurgitating the line that Jim Baker used to get the media to protray Gore as sore loser man. In fact, in that other thread, you almost repeated it verbatim.
Gore did what he did becuase that is what the law allowed for.

It's a regressive tax. From what I've read and that is not that much, I am not impressed with it and feel that it would benenfit the wealthy and hit working families too hard. :)

Don't forget that Bush was trying to hock something very similar last summer. Was spewing excrement about doing away with income taxes and having a flat-rate federal sales tax across the country. Factor in state and local taxes and you're going to be paying 25-30% in taxes for toothpaste and tampons. What a dolt. That's regressive taxation if I've ever seen it.

And your sig? LOVE IT! :xoxo:

Yes. It should have been. Kerry did not one interview on Air America. :confused: It is almost like he didn't wnat to be president.

Thank you. :xoxo:
So much has happened in the last year I'd forgotten Bush's little tax fantasy.
It seems that every other day, as I read the news, I just think to myself "WTF is happening to this country?" and "When will it end?"

No, the law allowed him to request the recounts individually in each county. Yet, he chose only the four where he thought he had a better chance - wonder why :rolleyes:

Hey wait a minute - didn't I just say I was not getting into this again :laugh:

The problem as I see it with the left, is they truly think it is okay to tax people over 50% if they make over say $200,000 a year (and some put the income at less than that). That is insane. No one deserves that - period. Thus, though it is not perfect, a flat tax is the fairest option. I would even go for a flat tax on anyone making $30,000 or more a year and people making under that pay no tax even though that would become a loophole to avoid tax. But, taxing someone at over 50% just on the Fed. level is assinine and punitive.

I get that some people here may not be for a tax that high, but I suggest some are and that is just wrong. But, hey let's take all the incentive out of the drive to do better and make more money :rolleyes:

It allows for that now. It did not allow for that in 2000.

They are paying probably more than that now :shrug: I suggest the average person with an average mortagage with average other deductions pays probably somewhere between 20 and 30% - Thus, they would benefit with a 15% flat tax :shrug:

Of course it did as I cited the law in the link you posted - no where was he legally limited to the four counties most favorable to him. I mean if he could not ask individually to each county for a recount due to perceived error, etc., then how did he do it in four? But, think I think we are talking about two different things here. I am talking only about why Gore requested the initial recount due to error, etc., in the four counties most favorable to him. Clearly there were problems all over Florida and he knew that - I certainly did and I am just an ordinary citizen who watches the news. Yet, Gore could not be bothered to look at counties unfavorable to him. I think that was wrong. If he was so concerned about voter fraud, then why make it partisan. He, via his spokespeople, could have individually asked for a recount in every county just as they did in the four they individually petitioned. He did not do this. Instead, he chose only the four most favorable to him and I think that is wrong. I mean do you really think if he had thought he might gain votes in some county other than the four he listed, he would not have claimed error in that fifth county. Of course he would have.

I fully admit that later Gore suggested a statewide recount, which was real big of him then. But, his initial actions were self serving and wrong from a fairness point of view.

My figues were too high on average. Here is a pretty cool article http://www.cbpp.org/311tax.htm - but even with these figures - 15% is still less or equal for middle America :shrug:

Note - thisw study is from 1998 and the rates have changed. But, it is still good for a comparison and I still think most Americans would have more money under a flat tax because they have to give away money to get the deductions to get down to 15% and that is not a straight deduction of 100% paid, it is a percentage of what is paid. Under a flat tax, they keep this money and get the same effect.