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Summary of the 2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities
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Introduction After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have changed the election result, if proven. Following the election, voters bringing legal action claimed that these irregularities if corrected by the relevant courts would have reversed the claimed Bush victory. The U.S. Electoral College vote on December 13, 2004 gave President Bush a 286-251 victory over challenger John Kerry and was certified by the U.S. Congress on January 6, 2005, despite a challenge to alleging irregularities in that state's election process. Since the Electoral Vote result has been officially certified by Congress, there is no means by which the election of George W. Bush can be overturned. As a result, the most prominent case contesting the election before the Ohio Supreme Court, 'Moss v. Bush', has reportedly been de-suited, and a Federal suit may be pending. Over 38,000 incidents have been alleged in the 2004 election. These incidents range from minor errors to direct voter intimidation, mishandled absentee and provisional ballots, malfunctioning or inaccurate machines and/or apparent hacking and vote tampering. (Source description of incidents ). Groups and individuals involved in the investigation and litigation of allegations of irregularities in the 2004 Election include John Kerry, Ralph Nader, David Cobb, Michael Badnarik, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, , members of the House Judiciary Committee and civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson. :This article provides detailed coverage of these issues, with many links to external sources. For a broad summary of controversies surrounding the voting process, see 2004 U.S. election voting controversies. Controversial or irregular aspects of the 2004 election Following the 2004 Election, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to everyone entitled to vote and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the allegation that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the election. conceding the election to Bush on November 3, Kerry was criticized by some of his supporters, who argued that Bush's victory in Ohio could be reversed on the basis of election irregularities. Among the issues raised in 2004 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 ballot and provisional ballots and possible partisan interference by voting machine company and election officials. Although a recount was conducted in Ohio, many of the alleged improprieties like long lines or tampering cannot be addressed by a recount. The 2004 Electoral Vote Challenge in Congress On January 6 the United States Congress met in joint session to certify the Electoral Votes for president and vice president, cast by Electors representing all 50 states. Before the Electoral Votes from the state of Ohio were read U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer joined U.S. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who raised an objection on the basis that they were not 'regularly given'. A similar objection occurred in 2001, when Rep. Maxine Waters objected to the votes of the state of Florida, but when a Senator did not stand to join the objection, as required by the Constitution, the objection had been overruled. On January 6, the first successful objection to an entire state's votes since 1877 resulted in separate debates and votes on the objection in both Houses. The challenge was rejected by a vote of [http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress109&session1&vote=00001 1-74] (Yea-Nay) in the Senate and by a vote of in the House. Numerous Democratic members of Congress spoke on the importance of election reform, announced initiatives for constitutional protection of the vote, and for election integrity protection against conflicts of interest and raised questions about the process of the vote in Ohio and other states. Debate continues regarding Election Reform, with a number of bills aimed at eliminating some of these irregularities expected soon in the 109th Congress. Community concern about the integrity of US election procedures is growing and may bring about reform from several states. Voting machines and vendor issues Before the 2004 election, significant issues were raised about the quality of electronic voting machines. If an electronic voting machine's software contains intentionally designed or accidental bugs or backdoors it could give someone the ability to alter the outcome of an election. Other types of voting machines and vote tabulation computers are in widespread use today. Government agencies who purchased voting machines were often denied access to the manufacturer's proprietary software. Even when the software was available for review, there were concerns that the agencies lacked the technical expertise to find problems or to audit changes to the software. Electronic voting machine do not utilize traditional recounts and always report the same vote total. The senior executives of each of the top 3 voting machine companies (ES&S, Diebold and Sequoia, accounting for over 90% of voting machines in use) have strong Republican ties. Key managers or funders of all three are significant Republican fund raisers and donors. Some believe the consistency of their ties with one political party is sufficient to overturn the 2004 poll, given the small margin of victory. Some voting machines were not designed to offer an auditable paper trail, which has been a focus of some complaints. Some computer scientists have stated that these machines are not tamper resistant and encourage the use of open-architecture voting machines to make the process more transparent. 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 certifying company, Ciber Inc, recommended voting machines for certification without testing core firmware or attempting to verify any of the crucial security aspects of the machines. 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 voting machines, and tampering with computer files. Internal emails at the manufacturers stated that data files used in the machines are not password protected to prevent manual editing. Exit polls Exit polls have been used in other countries to expose election fraud. For example, the campaign of Mexican President Vicente Fox used exit polling to ensure that the ruling opposition party conducted the election fairly. Similarly, exit polls conducted during the original 2004 Ukrainian presidential election were seen as a critical early indication of fraud. A re-vote was eventually ordered that reversed the original result and agreed more closely with the original exit polls. The largest program of U.S. exit polls is conducted for a consortium of news organizations, the National Election Pool ("NEP"), and is primarily based on interviews with voters leaving polling places in 49 states. (Oregon is omitted because its system of voting by mail eliminated the traditional polling place, although people who voted by mail in Oregon and other states were surveyed by telephone.) Because the final published results from these exit polls are controversially adjusted to match vote counts, these figures cannot be used to determine election fraud. However, in the 2004 election, pre-adjustment NEP exit poll results were leaked onto the internet during Election Day. These results showed Kerry leading Bush by 3 percent, but this margin was reversed in the actual vote counts. Notably, some of the largest differences between vote counts and preliminary exit poll results occurred in battleground states. These discrepancies led to charges that the exit polls were more accurate than the official counts. The co-director of NEP, Warren Mitofsky, said he suspected that the difference arose because "the Kerry voters were more anxious to participate in our exit polls than the Bush voters." . Some statisticians, computer scientists and other commentators are unconvinced that this explains the observed discrepancy between exit polls and actual results. A preliminary report from the California Institute of Technology errantly used adjusted exit poll data in an effort to prove there were no exit poll discrepancies. Critics point out it doesn't make sense to use exit poll data that has been adjusted by official results as evidence there is no discrepancy between exit polls and the actual vote, since any adjusted exit poll data is tainted by the official results. A more detailed from Steven Freeman, a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania calculated that the odds that the difference between unadjusted exit poll data and actual vote counts being due to chance is less than 1 in 600,000. This paper is a raw analysis and does not attempt to determine the source of the discrepancies. It has attracted for not having incorporated large enough design effects, which would mean that the paper has overstated the odds against these anomalies occurring by chance. 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 [http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ELN_TEXAS_GLANCE_CORRECTIVE?SITEMIDTF&SECTIONHOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT reported by the Associated 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 given mixed results. A poll by the 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 (). 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 described voter suppression in his state, Ohio: :Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registration through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout. Phone calls to voters giving them erroneous polling information were also common Political parties generally pay lip service to the ideal of encouraging turnout. Occasionally, however, an incautious but revealing comment is publicized, as when a Republican state legislator in Michigan said, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle." In 2004, the issue of long lines and unequal vote machine distribution (among other issues) received increased attention. In many places, voters had to wait several hours to vote. Among the factors thought to be at work were: the general increase in voter turnout; a particular increase in first-time voters whose processing required more time; and confusion about the providing of provisional ballots, which many states had never used before. Racial discrimination and other bias Some of the issues described above have created problems for voters generally. Critics allege the pattern of disenfranchisement is by design, having disproportionately affected racial minorities and/or urban precincts. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African Americans, who were 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 well-established 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. Many Democrats alleged that other election-related problems affected their supporters more heavily, for example, if the election had been conducted without improprieties, Kerry would have won the presidency. Jesse Jackson, a prominent African-American activist and founder of the Rainbow Coalition, 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. Officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, were dispatched to investigate allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in in a repeat of the highly problematic "scrub list" of the 2000 election, the state ordered the implementation of a "potential felon" purge list to remove voters from the rolls. The state abandoned the plan after news media investigations revealed that the 2004 list also included thousands of people who were eligible to vote, and heavily targeted African-Americans while virtually ignoring Hispanic voters. 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 election. The OSCE observers were granted access to polling stations in a number of states, however sometimes only in specific counties. They have a available. The monitors criticised partisan election officials and the long lines at polling places, but said that electronic voting machines generally seemed to work well. :As for electronic voting, Gould said he preferred Venezuela's system to the calculator-sized touch pads in Miami. "Each electronic vote in Venezuela also produces a ticket that voters then drop into a ballot box," Gould said. "Unlike fully electronic systems, this gives a backup that can be used to counter claims of massive fraud." The United States is also nearly unique in lacking a unified voter registration system or national identity card, Gould said, adding that he would ideally require U.S. voters to dip a finger in an ink bowl or have a cuticle stained black after voting. "In El Salvador, Namibia and so many other elections, the ink was extremely important in preventing challenges to multiple voting," Gould said. "In Afghanistan it didn't work so well, because they used the dipping ink for the cuticles, so it wiped right off." Other controversies 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 [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmplstory&cid548&ncid703&e7&u=/ap/20041211/ap_on_el_ge/voting_problems]. * Another article alleges that Democratic results were apparently withheld until Republican results had moved ahead. * 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. :* Manipulating vote forecasting and calling races prematurely in the media, encouraging candidates to concede." * There are suggestions that websites and newsgroups related to fair voting groups or other interested parties may have been visibly hacked and disrupted. * In the 2000 election, especially in the disputed recounts in Florida, there were issues concerning the ambiguities and uncertainties that arose from punch-card ballots, such as the hanging chads (incompletely punched holes). 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 because of hanging chads. State and Federal government agencies Master list of Election-related litigation U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee requested an investigation by the GAO, asked Ohio election's chief 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. 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. House Committee Press letters and press releases See http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ Dec. 8 committee hearing excerpts :"If you look at who was here," said Arnebeck, "you had leaders from the generally white political reform movement, and leaders from the black civil rights movement. This is a powerful coalition. We are not talking about one group having dominance over the other, but a real partnership of the traditional political reform community with the traditional civil rights community ... Jesse Jackson, as you could see today, is giving tremendous moral leadership to this. He has tremendous credibility. This is a man who walked with Dr. Martin Luther King in the long civil rights struggle that we honor so much in our history now. This is the man who was holding Dr. King when he died. I was sitting right next to him when he talked about the fact that there aren't members of Congress with children dying in Iraq, and tears were in his eyes. This is a man who feels this stuff deeply, and when he talks about what is at stake, he means it in the deepest part of his being." Dec. 13 committee hearing excerpts :In Warren County, where election officers declared a homeland security emergency on Election Day, and barred reporters and others from watching the vote count, it now has been revealed that county employees were told the previous Thursday they should prepare for the Election Day lockdown. That disclosure suggests the lockdown was a political decision, not a true security risk. Moreover, statements also describe how ballots were left unguarded and unprotected in a warehouse on Election Day, and they were hastily moved after county officials received complaints. :In Franklin County, where Columbus is located, the election director, Matt Damschroder, misinformed a federal court on Election Day when he testified the county had no additional voting machines in response to a Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought by the state Democratic Party that minority precincts were intentionally deprived of machines. It now appears as many as 81 voting machines were being held back, out of 2,866 available, according to recent statements by Damschroder and Bill Anthony, the chairman of the Franklin County Board of Elections. The shortage of machines in Democratic-leaning districts lead to long lines and thousands of people leaving in frustration and not voting. Damschroder's contradictory statements raise the possibility of perjury. :Also in Franklin County, a worker at the Holiday Inn observed a team of 25 people who called themselves the "Texas Strike Force" using payphones to make intimidating calls to likely voters, targeting people recently in the prison system. The "Texas Strike Force" members paid their way to Ohio, but their hotel accommodations were paid for by the Ohio Republican Party, whose headquarters is across the street. The hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returning to jail if he voted. Another hotel worker called the police, who came but did nothing. :In Knox County, students at Kenyon College, a liberal arts school, stood in line for up to 11 hours, because only one voting machine was in use. However, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, there were ample voting machines and no lines. This suggests the GOP shorting of voting machines was a more widespread tactic than just targeting inner-city neighborhoods. :Reports in sworn affadavits affirm numerous instances of direct official interference with the right to vote. In Warren County, Democrats were being targeted and forced to use provisional ballots, even if they had proper identification. These ballots were then subjected to more rigorous standards to be counted than were other ballots. In a half-dozen precincts in Franklin County, people who were not inside polling places by 7:30 PM were told to leave - even if they had waited in line for hours. This is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Sworn affidavits also confirmed reports of old voter rolls being used, meaning that new voters were not on the list and would be given provisional ballots, if allowed to vote at all. [http://www.jardimed.com/video (video, wmv)] [http://movies.ziaspace.com/U.wmv (video, wmv)] :Sworn testimony of David Cobb to House Judiciary :"Triad GSI employee had told staff at the Columbus County Board of Elections office to inconspicuously create a pre-prepared recount result, then report this data irrespective of the actual recount. The Triad GSI representative had also tampered with Triad voting equipment in the offices." ::"This is going on, all over the state," Cobb told the hearing. (emphasis added) :Sworn testimony of Clint Curtis to House Judiciary [http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/12/13/18416/541/77#77 (partial transcript)] ::Q: "So one person putting in bad code in a central tabulation machine could affect thousands and thousands or tens of thousands of votes?" A: Right. Q: "And if you had a recount and no paper trail, would that be ... reversible by seeing the discrepancy between the tabulator, the central tabulator code, and what the individual machines which had not been tampered with code?" A: Not if I wrote it. Q: "Why not? In other words..." A: In other words I could make it match. Government Accountability Office The Government Accountability Office said it will investigate how the vote was counted in the Nov. 2 election, with an eye toward answering persistent questions about voting irregularities in many states, including Ohio and Florida, which were crucial to President Bush's win. The irregularities include machines failing to record votes or recording them inaccurately, as well as problems with the way officials counted provisional ballots, which were provided to voters whose names didn't appear on voting lists but who contended they were eligible to participate in the election. Congress' investigative agency cautioned, however, that it isn't authorized to take action if irregularities are found. GAO spokeswoman Susan Becker said the investigation isn't a direct response to a recent request by several Democratic members of the House, who asked the GAO to investigate. The GAO was already planning to look at systemic issues related to the elections process after the Nov. 2. election. But given the concern expressed by more than a dozen members of Congress and many voters, the GAO will look at some of the specific problems reported. These include complaints by some voters who said they used touch-screen voting machines that recorded votes for candidates they didn't pick. The GAO also will examine distribution and allocation of voting machines, since there have been reports in Ohio that some precincts didn't have enough machines to handle the number of people who turned out to vote. 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. [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2004/story?id203866&page1], California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced 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". [http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3449691?headline=Diebold~to~Settle~with~California] 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. 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 concerning voting irregularities. Their against State of Louisiana elections officials alleged many low and moderate income citizens were denied the right to vote when polling places failed to open on time or provide enough provisional ballots. The Election Protection Coalition Hearings were held Saturday 13 November at the New Faith Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio (An additional hearing will be held Monday, November 15, 2004, 6-9 PM, in the Franklin County Court House, also in Columbus, Ohio). The hearings were organized by the . The hearings allowed citizens to enter their concerns into the public record, for possible review by the Ohio State Legislature. For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy. The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process. The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement. Many of the voters who testified were clearly Democrats who wonder if their losing presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, was able to draw all the votes that were intended for him." Lynn Landes' investigation of AP exit polls reporting Landes' investigation states that the 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. (Source ) Another article on Associated Press comments: :"Burl Osborne, chairman of the AP board of directors, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election. Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of AP, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News before joining AP. Carroll is also on the Associated Press Managing Editors' (APME) 7-member executive committee. The APME "works in partnership with AP to improve the wire service's performance," according to their website. APME vice president, Deanna Sands, is managing editor of the ultra conservative Omaha World Herald newspaper, whose parent company owns the largest voting machine company in the nation, Election Systems and Software (ES&S)." Verified Voting and trueMajority campaigns Over a thousand computer scientists, academics, lawyers, elected officials and regular citizens have signed verifiedvoting.org's to require voting machines with a verifiable paper trail. Ben Cohen's (founder of Ben & Jerry's) notes that, "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 *34 Democratic members of Congress, including one Senator, objected to the counting of Ohio's Electoral votes on January 6. Their objection was overruled by separate votes in both the Senate and House after debates lasting one and four hours respectively. *The House Committee on the Judiciary Democratic Staff released a 101-page report detailing election irregularities entitled "What Went Wrong in Ohio". The report was entered into the Congressional Record on January 6. The investigation by the House Judiciary Democratic Staff, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) is ongoing. *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, have completed their fundraiser for a recount of the Ohio state presidential vote. 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. 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." Media Lockdown Since reports of irregularities surrounding the 2004 Presidential vote first started to surface even prior to the election, there has been an ongoing complaint by many that the 'mainstream' 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: :"For this challenge to Ohio's electors to have occurred, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the internet activists, who spread the story of my efforts and supported me in every way possible. I am also thankful to the alternative media, including talk radio and blogs that gave substantial attention and investigation to these matters when all but a handful in the mainstream media refused to examine the facts. " See Also
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