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.