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2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities
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Following the 2004 U.S. presidential election, concerns were raised regarding various aspects of the voting process: whether voting had been made accessible to everyone entitled to vote, whether the votes cast had been correctly counted, and whether these irregularities decisively affected the reported outcome of the election. Among the issues raised were allegations or complaints regarding obstacles to voter registration, improper purges of voter lists, voter suppression, accuracy and reliability of voting machines (especially electronic voting), problems with absentee and provisional ballots, areas with more votes than signatures of voters in election poll books, areas with more votes than registered voters, and possible partisan interference by voting machine companies and election officials. Although a , many of the alleged improprieties (such as long lines or tampering) could not be addressed in a recount. :This article provides detailed coverage of these issues. For a broad summary of controversies surrounding the voting process, see 2004 United States election voting controversies. Issues The concerns included: *Exit Polls: The November 3rd 12:23 am election-day exit poll results conducted for the National Election Pool (NEP) by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International predicted John Kerry winning the popular vote by 5 million, while the official results gave George W. Bush the win with a popular margin of 3 million, an 8 million vote (6.5%) difference. *Voting Machines: With the passage of the , passing 347-58 in the House and 92-2 in the Senate and signed by President George W. Bush on October 21, 2002, many states were given significant compensation to upgrade their voting apparatus to new electronic systems manufactured by several different vendors such as Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Hart InterCivic. Several of these systems were identified as containing significant vulnerabilities by numerous reports: the "RABA Trusted Agent Report for the State of Maryland" , the SAIC Report , and Professor Avi Rubin's "Analysis of an Electronic Voting System," among others. It is unclear how many of these security risks had been fixed by Election Day. *Voter Suppression: There are reports, some documented through video, of long lines at certain precincts in urban areas that favored Kerry. . Few experts believed the problems were enough to overturn Bush's victory and little evidence of fraud has emerged. Remarks were made by DNC Chairman Howard Dean. Speculations as to the cause of the delay include more efficient voting in suburban areas (machines in suburban areas were more heavily used), suburban voters were less easily discouraged from voting, or poorer districts were provided inferior and less equipment per capita. Around 50 million votes were cast using electronic voting machines, while 32 million votes were cast with punch cards in the 2004 U.S. election. As the use of these machines became mainstream, several reports were released that highlighted insecurities with OpticalScan and DRE voting systems. The electronic voting machine industry joined the Information Technology Association of America, an industry organization that represents hundreds of the top technology companies in the U.S., and created the "Election Technology Council" in order to address these concerns. Many voting machines do not record votes on a paper medium. Demonstrations have shown significant vulnerabilities with some electronic voting machines. Some, including Stanford professor David Dill, believe a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is required for proper auditing of electronic results and that auditing is difficult if not impossible without it, though he has acknowledged security concerns with VVPAT systems, as have other experts. (See Challenges and concerns with VVPAT) According to a team of security experts, even a small alteration of the machine could have been enough to change the result in battleground states. Some computer scientists have said these machines are not tamper resistant and that open-architecture voting machines would make the process more transparent. The voting public is denied access to the manufacturer's proprietary software, and the official certifications often do not include third party software (such as a Windows operating system. In several cases, agencies and experts examining the machines expressed dismay at their quality and security. At least one voting machine began counting backwards to zero when it reached 32,000 votes. The manufacturer, ES&S, allegedly had known of this issue for two years but had failed to fix the bug. In two cases, a Independent Testing Authori (CIBER Inc.) recommended voting machines for certification without testing core firmware or attempting to verify any of the crucial security aspects of the machines. CIBER's accreditation has since been terminated by the Election Assistance Commission. Some managers and/or affiliates of each of these also have criminal records, including cases of computer fraud, embezzlement, and bid rigging. In addition, voting machine companies have been accused of major security and law violations. Employees (including senior executives) have been found to have had multiple prior convictions including bans for bid rigging, embezzlement, and drug trafficking, installing uncertified and untested versions of software on touchscreen voting machines, and tampering with computer files. Exit polls :Main article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls Exit poll interviews of voters leaving the polling place have been used in other countries to expose election fraud. In the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, for example, exit poll discrepancies were an indication of possible election fraud. A re-vote was eventually ordered and the election result was overturned. The National Election Pool (NEP), a consortium of news organizations responsible for conducting most exit polls for the 2004 election, hired Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International (Edison/Mitofsky) to conduct the polls. The stated goal of NEP's and Edison/Mitofsky's exit polling and subsequent analysis is to accurately predict election winners, not to detect fraud. Accordingly, they adjust the final (published) exit poll results to match actual vote counts. According to blogger Mark Blumenthal, in the 2004 election, pre-adjustment exit poll results were most likely leaked onto the Internet during Election Day via CNN. These results, based on unadjusted exit polls, indicated that Kerry was leading Bush. According to an internal review of 1,400 precincts, Kerry's vote in the exit poll was higher than that in the vote count by an average of 1.9 percent. At one point during the day, Kerry's lead over Bush was estimated to be 3% of the popular vote. Differences between vote counts and pre-adjustment exit poll results were larger in battleground states. A preliminary report from the California Institute of Technology purported to show no discrepancy in the exit poll data. Another analysis from Steven Freeman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, gained initial media attention by asserting that the odds were less than 1 in 250 million that the difference between unadjusted exit poll data and actual vote counts was due to chance, although he later revised these odds to 1 in 662,000. His paper has attracted criticism Initial exit poll results indicated that Bush made substantial gains among Hispanics, especially in his home state of Texas, but some of these apparent gains now seem to have evaporated. A correction reported by the Press reduced Bush's support substantially, turning an 18-point Bush margin among Texan Hispanics into a narrow Kerry lead. Nationwide figures reported later by NBC reduced Bush's gains further, while other surveys have produced mixed results. A poll by the William C. Velasquez Institute indicated that Bush's gains among Hispanics since 2000 were not statistically significant, but the University of Pennsylvania's larger National Annenberg Election Survey showed a significant increase in Bush's support. In a 77-page report issued in January 2005, the polling company, Edison/Mitofsky, denied the possibility that fraud caused differences between exit poll results and vote tallies. Edison/Mitofsky believes "Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters" and that this willingness was the cause of the error in the exit poll results. Edison/Mitofsky said their evaluation does not support the hypothesis that discrepancies were higher in precincts using electronic voting equipment. A group called US Count Votes responded with its own report , saying: ["The Edison/Mitofsky report] gives no consideration to alternative explanations involving election irregularities fails to substantiate their hypothesis that the difference between their exit polls and official election results should be explained by problems with the exit polls. They assert without supporting evidence that (p. 4), "Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters." In fact, data included within the report suggest that the opposite might be true." Their report also states that Edison/Mitofsky did not adequately investigate whether the type of voting machine was a factor in discrepancies. Several professors of statistics and other analytical fields contributed to the US Count Votes report. The report recommended that a national database of precinct-level election results be compiled to support rigorous statistical analysis. US Count Votes have since produced a further report (Executive Summary , Full Report ), which claims that Edison/Mitofsky's data gives support to the idea that the exit polls were more accurate than the official vote tallies, and that a thorough investigation and exhaustive recounts in key states would be appropriate. Vote suppression :Main article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression The term "voter suppression" is used to describe methods of discouraging or impeding people from voting. The government agency or private entity doing so believes that the would-be voters thus turned away would have been more likely to vote for an opponent. For example, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) described alleged voter suppression in his state (Ohio): Voting technology irregularities - In 2004, the issue of long lines and unequal voting machine distribution (among other issues) received increased attention in Ohio. In many places, voters had to wait several hours to vote. These waits have been attributed to an overall increase in voter registration without the mandated proportional increase in voting machines in some precincts (some precincts lost voting machines while gaining registered voters); misdirection of voters, and poorly trained staff. . This problem first surfaced in Florida in the previous presidential election. In that election, punch-card machines were likewise distributed in disproportionally high amounts in African American precincts. Public recognition of the potential for abuse by allocating these machines disproportionately resulted in nation-wide efforts by citizen groups to discontinue the use of these machines. In 2004, the punch-card ballots were still widely used in some states. For example, more than 90,000 votes cast in Ohio were discounted, many allegedly due to "hanging" chads. Voter registration irregularities - Allegations of voter registration fraud were made by both parties in many states during the 2004 election. Some of the controversies involved the procedure by which workers are paid per registration. In Colorado at least 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms were submitted. Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson issued a statement saying: In Nevada, former field registrars for the Republican party and for the Republican party-funded group "Voters Outreach of America" claimed that they had been instructed to "dispose of" any voter registrations they received from Democrats. A Republican official described the allegations as an "outright lie", and that there was "no way anyone would issue instructions to destroy valid registrations, even from Democrats". , , Months prior to the election, the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections filed suit against the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Board of Elections, claiming that they botched or failed to file the registration of at least 10,000 voters. Provisional ballot irregularities - During the election, a record number of provisional ballots - ballots for people who believed they had registered but were not on the voter rolls - were filled out in that county. Of those, 33% (8,099) were ultimately thrown out, more than three and a half times the normal Ohio rate of 9%. Shortly after the ballots had been counted, the People for the American Way filed a lawsuit seeking to have provisional ballots re-examined, demanding that provisional ballots be accepted regardless of the precinct they were filed in, in accordance with Ohio state law and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and that registration be checked against voter registration cards, rather than just electronic voting lists. Absentee ballot irregularities - Absentee ballots were also an issue. In Broward County, Florida, over 58,000 absentee ballots sent to the Postal Service to be sent out to voters were never received by the Postal Service, according to the Postal Service and county election officials. Tire slashing - In Wisconsin, the son of Rep. Gwen Moore (D) and four volunteers for the Kerry / Edwards campaign slashed tires on 25 vans rented by Republicans to aid in voter turnout. Republican campaign workers were able to replace the vans in time to take voters to the polls. Spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Seth Boffeli, said the five were paid employees of Kerry's campaign, but were not acting on behalf of the campaign or party. All five were arrested and faced felony charges. . Allegations of racial discrimination and other bias Some critics allege that the pattern of voter disenfranchisement is by design, having disproportionately affected racial minorities and/or urban precincts. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights estimated that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African Americans, who represented only 11 percent of the voters. People for the American Way and the NAACP catalogued a number of voting problems with discriminatory impacts through early 2004. The 2004 election continued the trend that African Americans were much more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. As a result, a disproportionate reduction in the African-American vote would tend to hurt Democratic candidates. BBC journalist Greg Palast, a self-described progressive, alleged that if the election had been conducted without improprieties, Kerry would have won the presidency. Jesse Jackson remarked on Election Day: "Suppose 500 black folks came into a white neighborhood to challenge votes. It would be totally unacceptable. We will not surrender in the face of this madness." . In August 2004, the NAACP and other civil rights leaders charged that the Republican Party was mounting a campaign to keep African Americans and other minority voters away from the polls in November. International election monitoring A small team of international election monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were invited to monitor the U.S. election. The OSCE observers were granted access to polling stations in a number of states, although sometimes only in specific counties. The monitors criticised partisan election officials and the long lines at polling places, but said that electronic voting machines generally appeared to run smoothly. Allegations of a media 'lockdown' Since reports of irregularities surrounding the 2004 Presidential vote first started to surface, there has been an ongoing complaint by concerned citizens that the corporate media has not given enough coverage to the issue, or has in fact intentionally minimized coverage and public awareness. Although numerous publications have covered the voting process leading up to, during and following the election, the allegation of a "media lockdown" has persisted and grown as the majority of the coverage and insight into the election irregularities has taken place in alternative media outlets (independent/local media, internet media, etc.). In light of numerous troublesome occurrences, most notably the exit polls withheld from public scrutiny by various media corporations who own the data, allegations of corporate or government manipulation and suppression of the media continue. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), in an open letter to supporters, alluded to such a media lockdown: Other controversies and allegations There have been incidents of irregularity, confusion or possible malfeasance in official handling of ballots with address errors, missing birthdates or other discrepancies, where such handling has been alleged to be contrary to standing law. Please see the section for a list of reports detailing reported irregularities and unresolved aspects of the election. In Cleveland, a mistake in precinct poll coordination led to hundreds of presidential votes being cast for a third party candidate instead of the intended candidate. Another article alleges that Democratic results on election night were withheld until Republican results had moved ahead. Some analysts have suggested that a discrepancy between the loss margins of minor Democratic Supreme Court candidate C. Ellen Connally and Kerry/Edwards indicates vote manipulation: one would expect a minor candidate to receive fewer votes, relatively speaking, than the major candidate for the party. In some areas, this situation was reversed. Blackboxvoting. ORG reports that the following voting irregularities are directly foreseeable: "There are some who are using election-manipulation techniques to transfer a block of power to their friends. This is a business plan, or a form of organized crime, depending on how alarmed you are ... Manipulation of elections includes the following attack points." # Strategic redistricting, ignoring normal timelines for re-evaluation. # Orchestrated vote suppression: Hiring "challengers" to confront voters in targeted areas; moving polling places at the last minute, "losing" the voter registration records for a percentage of targeted voters, booting up equipment late, or not having enough equipment in minority districts. # Casting and counting the vote on manipulatable and insecure systems. Blackboxvoting. ORG has alleged it was "under attack around the time of the 2004 election, repeatedly, using various methods, very aggressively." The attack "was not random. It was clearly a targeted attack using a variety of methods..." Also, it was reported that in Ohio, postcards telling voters to vote on November 3rd, a day after the true presidential election were circulated. In one instance, Chad Staton of Defiance, Ohio, charged with filing 124 false voter registration forms, said he committed the felonies in exchange for crack cocaine from Georgianne Pitts of Toledo, who was working for NAACP National Voter Fund. Voter's rights advocacy organizations Blackboxvoting.org Black Box Voting has launched a fraud audit into Florida and Ohio. Three investigators (Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson, and Kathleen Wynne) were in Florida requesting hand counts on selected counties that had not fully complied with blackboxvoting.org's Nov. 2 Freedom of Information requests. Blackboxvoting.org accuses Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of failing to properly account for provisional ballots, and refusing to allow citizens to see pollbooks. The director of blackboxvoting.org, Bev Harris, has filed a lawsuit against Palm Beach County, Florida Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore, which accuses her of stonewalling or ignoring requests for public records. The information was obtained from her successor, Arthur Anderson. Electronic Frontier Foundation According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation electronic voting machines may have serious security problems that aren't being addressed. Most of the machines use "black box" software that hasn't been publicly reviewed for security. Few machines provide voter-verifiable paper ballots which can be used to detect vote fraud. A recent analysis by several academic researchers outlines the many and varied ways that anyone from a technically proficient insider to an average voter could disrupt a poorly designed e-voting system to defraud an election. EFF has filed numerous lawsuits concerning voting irregularities. The Election Protection Coalition Hearings were held November 13 and 15, 2004, in Columbus, Ohio. The hearings were organized by the Election Protection Coalition and allowed citizens to enter their concerns regarding voter suppression and other irregularities into the public record. Lynn Landes' investigation of Associated Press exit polls reporting Journalist Lynn Landes' investigation states that the Associated Press (AP) is the "sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night" and that they have refused to explain where this information will be sourced, and "refused to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country." She notes that if so, a remote computer could also access these same machines (the manufacturers already requested they not be connected during some elections, see above), that the manufacturers pride themselves on "accessibility" and that many of the AP executives have Republican ties and as a sole source may not be as non-partisan as is believed. She also points out there are significant ownership ties between conservative newspapers and voting machine manufacturers. Verified Voting and TrueMajority campaigns Over a thousand computer scientists, academics, lawyers, elected officials and regular citizens have signed verifiedvoting.org's petition to require voting machines with a verifiable paper trail. TrueMajority founder Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's fame) notes, "The fledgling technology already has failed widely-publicized tests. One hacker was able to open a locked machine and start changing votes. It took him less than a minute. Another hacker was able to intercept and change vote totals being sent to headquarters." Political party efforts Democratic Party Several Democratic members of the House Committee on the Judiciary have written to the GAO requesting a formal investigation. Their first letter was written three days after the election, on November 5 , and this was followed by a second letter on November 8 listing further matters which had since come to light . The investigation by the GAO is ongoing. Numerous Democratic politicians have responded to the irregularities reported in the 2004 Presidential election. The Democratic National Committee (DNC)'s Voting Rights Institute has initiated an investigation of the Ohio irregularities. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) promised on January 6 that HAVA (the 'Help Americans Vote Act') would be 'fixed' in the 109th Congress. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is expected to introduce the 'Federal Election Integrity Act' in February 2005. 'FEIA' is aimed at preventing election officials from participating in campaigns they oversee. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) agreed to join Senator Boxer (D-CA) in re-introducing legislation in the Senate requiring a paper audit for all electronic voting machines currently in service in the U.S. Third party candidates Green Party candidate David Cobb, in conjunction with his Libertarian opponent Michael Badnarik, raised the funds needed for a recount of the Ohio presidential vote in four days. Their request was filed with the required fees on November 19, and the recount was begun on December 13. Observers from the Green Party claimed that there were irregularities in the conduct of this recount , and Cobb filed a federal complaint on December 30 asking for a recount to be reconducted using uniform standards. Cobb and Badnarik also requested a recount in New Mexico, but were asked to pay the estimated cost of $1.4 million up front. They instead challenged this requirement in court, and appealed an initial ruling that upheld this fee. They also requested a recount in Nevada, but withdrew this request due to financial and other demands which they considered unreasonable. Independent candidate Ralph Nader filed a request for a recount of the votes with New Hampshire's Secretary of State. Nader's request cited "irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire" and added: "These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected." The state conducted a partial recount which was completed Nov. 30, finding no significant discrepancies. . According to Nader, the current situation with voting machines warrants investigation. Several elements make voting machines "probative" for investigation, according to Nader, a consumer affairs lawyer: proprietary ownership, secret code, vested interests, a high-value reward, and lack of any real consequences, or likelihood of getting caught, for vote manipulation. "We are told that shenanigans are just politics," said Nader at a press conference on Nov. 10. "Well, it's not politics. It's taking away people's votes." State and Federal government agencies Master list of Election-related litigation U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary (Democratic Staff) Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee requested an investigation by the GAO, asked Ohio election's chief J. Kenneth Blackwell for explanations of many irregularities, and held two Public Congressional Forums about voting irregularities in Ohio on December 8 and 13. Among the attendees were Jesse Jackson, Cliff Arnebeck, David Cobb, Bob Fitrakis and (at the first forum) Steve Freeman. Warren Mitofsky and Ken Blackwell were invited to the first forum but declined to attend. Relevant excerpts from the hearings are available at the article 2004 U.S. presidential election recounts and legal challenges. A 100-page status report on their investigations was released on January 5, 2005, prior to the Jan. 6 joint meeting of Congress to receive the electoral college votes. For letters and press releases, see House Committee on the Judiciary, Democratic Members. Government Accountability Office In November 2004, the Government Accountability Office began investigating vote counting in the election. The GAO report found problems with electronic voting machines, which could have resulted in lost or miscounted votes. The report did not make any specific accusations of fraud in the 2004 election. California State Voting Panel and State Department In October of 2004 the state of California issued an order stating that 15,000 brand new touch-screen voting machines would not be used in next week's presidential election. These electronic machines were manufactured by Diebold Inc., a North Canton, Ohio-based company that also specializes in automated teller machines and electronic security. :California election officials say there are serious flaws with the machines and that Diebold repeatedly misled the state about them. " literally engaged in absolutely deplorable behavior and, to that extent, put the election at risk, jeopardizing the outcome of the election," said California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced before the election in September that he will sue e-voting technology maker Diebold on charges that it defrauded the state because of their aggressive marketing and overstated claims, and sold the state poor-quality equipment that did not produce a paper trail and was full of security vulnerabilities. In December 2004, Diebold settled the case by agreeing to pay $2.6 million and to implement "certain reforms". Moss v. Bush : On November 2, 2004, the American people went to the polls to select the electors for President of the United States. Under the electoral college system George W. Bush garnered 286 electors while John Kerry received 251. Between November 2 and November 12, ballots were counted and certified by each state's secretary of state. One month later on December 13 2004 the Electors met to vote for President of the United States and transmit the certificates of vote to the Congressional Archivist. Each state had until December 22, 2004 to transmit these records. Within this period a civil case citing numerous statistical anomalies in Ohio's official canvass report alleged that election irregularities had altered the outcome of the election. The case, Moss v. Bush, was initially filed on December 13, 2004 in Ohio Supreme Court but was dismissed without prejudice because of a legally incorrect challenge. It was refiled and accepted. The Plaintiffs requested an expedited trial in order to meet the deadline of January 6 when Ohio's electoral votes were to be congressionally certified. The presiding judge, Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, denied that request. On January 6, 2005, congress certified Ohio's electoral votes. The Plaintiffs then requested that the case be withdrawn since the certification rendered the case moot. The judge accepted the request. The 2004 electoral vote challenge in Congress During the congressional certification of electoral votes, Senator Boxer (D) and Representative Jones (D) filed a formal objection to the certification of Ohio's electoral votes and a debate ensued in both chambers of congress. This was the second challenge to a state's electoral votes in United States history, the first was in 1877. A similar objection occurred in 2001 with Rep. Maxine Waters (D) challenging Florida's votes. In that instance no Senator joined the objection so it could not be legally recognised. Numerous Democratic members of Congress spoke on the importance of election reform, announced initiatives for constitutional protection of the vote, and called for election integrity protection against conflicts of interest, listing problems with the process of the vote in Ohio and other states. Numerous Republican members of Congress spoke against the objection, calling it an obstruction of the democratic process and pointing out that Bush won Ohio's vote by over 118,000 votes according to the recount. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) denounced the objection, calling Boxer and Jones the "X-Files Wing" of the Democratic Party. Part of the evidence that was used for debate and discussion was the House Committee on the Judiciary Democratic Staff 101-page report titled "What Went Wrong in Ohio". The report was entered into the Congressional Record on January 6. The objection was rejected by a vote of 1-74 (Yea-Nay) in the Senate and by a vote of 31-267 in the House, as both supporters and challengers anticipated. Debate continues regarding election reform, with a number of bills aimed at eliminating some of these irregularities expected in the 109th Congress. Community concern about the integrity of US election procedures is continuing and may bring about reform in several states. :For more information, see . See Also
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