Can we trust the count of the provisionals? Sometimes it pays to re-read your old material. On the fateful date of November 22, I wrote:
Maryland lawyer Jonathan S. Shurberg has crunched some numbers. At present, Bush is ahead in Ohio by some 135,000 votes. 155,000 provisional ballots remain uncounted. In the last election, 90% of the provisionals were accepted, and 90% of those went to the Democratic candidate. Of course, partisan hack Ken Blackwell will do his best (or worst) to lower those percentages. If 70% of the provisionals are deemed legit, and if 85% of those go to Kerry, Bush's margin of victory shrinks to roughly 56,000 votes.A 56,000 margin would have placed Bush in some danger, due to the recount.
Why do provisionals usually break heavily for the Democrat? Because they are usually handed out in Democratic areas.
As you know, the provisionals have now been counted. According to AP: "Out of 156,977 provisional ballots checked, 121,598 were pronounced valid and were accepted, meaning about one in five was thrown out, according to an AP tabulation."
The provisionals narrowed the Bush margin of victory from 135,000 votes to 119,000 votes (roughly speaking).
Which is very strange, when you think about it. According to Shurberg's analysis (which was based on precedent) a much larger percentage of the provisionals should have gone to the Democrat.
Now consider this: In Cuyahoga County, Ohio -- a Democratic stronghold -- only 68% of the provisionals were deemed acceptable. Out of every three ballots, one was tossed into the round file (roughly speaking).
Yet the overall numbers tell us that on a state-wide basis, only one out of five provisional ballots went bye-bye. In order to reach that figure, the acceptability of the ballots must have been judged by a very lenient standard in counties outside Cuyahoga.
How do we make these numbers work? How do we explain both the unexpectedly high number of Bush votes among the provisionals and the differing standards of ballot acceptability?
Here's a theory that neatly explains both oddities: Blackwell simply tossed out a sizable number of provisional votes for Kerry. Ballots were deemed unacceptable based on candidate selection, and not according to any other criteria.
Richard Hayes Phillips. In the past we have discussed the opinions of this PhD from the University of Oregon. Yes, his doctorate was in geology, but he is well-versed in statistics. Now he has published an affidavit which reveals that the Ohio vote numbers do not withstand scrutiny. Here are some choice chunks:
3. There are numerous examples of incorrect presidential vote tallies in certain precincts in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County. These irregularities include at least 16 precincts where votes intended to be cast for Kerry were shifted to other candidates' columns, and at least 30 precincts with inexplicably low voter turnout, including 7.10%, 13.05%, 19.60%, 21.01%, 21.80%, 24.72%, 28.83%, 28.97%, and 29.25%, and seven entire wards where voter turnout was reportedly below 50%, even as low as 39.35%. Kerry won Cleveland with 83.27% of the vote to 15.88% for Bush. If voter turnout was really 60% of registered voters, as seems likely based upon turnout in other major cities of Ohio, rather than 49.89% as reported, Kerry's margin of victory in Cleveland has been wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes...We have every right to ask why turnout was lower in Kerry-country than in Bush-land. Given the impossibly long lines in Kerry-country -- and the fact that people who were still in line after midnight were told to go home -- I don't see how the polling places could have physically accommodated a higher number of people.
In Butler County, there are nine precincts and two entire townships where Kerry received fewer votes than Gore despite a sharp increase in voter turnout; and there are precincts with reported increases in voter registration, since November 7, 2000, of 177.9%, 143.5%, 69.3%, 65.5%, 64.5%, 48.2%, 43.3%, 38.8%, 36.9%, 34.3%, 34.0%, and 33.8%, compared to an increase in population of only 3.12% county wide. In Clermont County, where the population has grown by 4.39% since the 2000 census, voter registration was reportedly up by 85.4% and 67.6% in two precincts, and down by 49.4% in another precinct, all in the same township; there were 23 precincts where turnout was up, but Kerry got fewer votes than Gore. All these data are indications that votes may have been shifted from Kerry to Bush. According to the official results certified by the Ohio Secretary of State, these three counties combined provided Bush with a plurality of 132,685 votes, which is 13,910 votes more than his statewide plurality of 118,775 votes. Given that George Bush carried these counties by 95,575 votes in 2000, the net loss for John Kerry could be as high as 37,000 votes...
In Toledo, Lucas County, there were 50 precincts with less than 60% reported turnout. All of them were won overwhelmingly by John Kerry, by a margin of better than 5 to 1 in the aggregate. There were 45 precincts with more than 80% reported turnout; 12 were won by Bush, 33 were won by Kerry, and most were competitive. When the precinct numbers are combined into totals for each ward, data not provided by the Board of Elections, a clear and unmistakable pattern emerges. The 14 wards with the highest reported turnout were won by John Kerry by a margin of 11 to 7 in the aggregate. The 10 wards with the lowest reported turnout were won by John Kerry by a margin of 6 to 1 in the aggregate. It is my professional opinion that the election in Lucas County was rigged, most likely by altering the vote totals in each ward by a percentage chosen for that ward, plus or minus, based upon voting patterns in past elections. If turnout in Toledo had been as high as that reported elsewhere in the county, John Kerry's plurality would have been 7,000 votes larger...
In summary, it is my professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth above of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots.
The Boston Globe, it has been reported, will do a piece on the locked-out recounters in Greene County. As you know, the recounters were apparently the only ones kept from the data.
As John Conyers, bless his heart, recently put it: "We have now repeatedly seen election officials obstruct and stonewall this search for the truth. I am beginning to wonder what it is they are trying to hide."
Robert Parry, in an interview here (scroll down), discusses the history of election-year Republican dirty tricks.
1 comment:
One fact that is insufficiently mentioned: Ken Blackwell, like Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000, is a co-chair of the Bush campaign.
If he were counting votes in the Ukraine, as co-chair of the Yanukovich campaign, would we judge him to be impartial?
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