|
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic
Staff
Wednesday
05 January 2005
Executive
Summary
Representative
John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee,
asked the Democratic staff to conduct an investigation into irregularities
reported in the Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report
concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress scheduled for
January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the votes of the electoral college
for president. The following Report includes a brief chronology of the
events; summarizes the relevant background law; provides detailed findings
(including factual findings and legal analysis); and describes various
recommendations for acting on this Report going forward.
We
have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential
election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters.
Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand
of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it
can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen
in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements
and constitutional standards.
This
report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with
the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting
of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements,
there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State
of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread
irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious
enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the
House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and
(3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people’s
trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place
more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly
in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and
casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed
changes to federal and state election laws.
With
regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive
and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many
cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and
illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth
Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
First,
in the run up to election day, the following actions by Mr. Blackwell,
the Republican Party and election officials disenfranchised hundreds
of thousands of Ohio citizens, predominantly minority
and Democratic voters:
- The
misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that
disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly
minority and Democratic voters. This was illustrated by the
fact that the Washington Post reported that in Franklin County, “27
of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed
majorities for Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven
wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry.” (See
Powell and Slevin, supra). Among other things, the conscious failure
to provide sufficient voting machinery violates the Ohio Revised Code
which requires the Boards of Elections to “provide adequate facilities
at each polling place for conducting the election.”
- Mr.
Blackwell’s decision to restrict provisional ballots resulted
in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of
voters, again predominantly minority and Democratic voters. Mr.
Blackwell’s decision departed from past Ohio law on provisional
ballots, and there is no evidence that a broader construction would
have led to any significant disruption at the polling places, and did
not do so in other states.
- Mr.
Blackwell’s widely reviled decision to reject voter registration
applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of
new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election.
- The
Ohio Republican Party’s decision to engage in preelection “caging” tactics,
selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation
had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit
found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation of consent
decrees barring the Republican Party from targeting minority voters
for poll challenges.
- The
Ohio Republican Party’s decision to utilize thousands of partisan
challengers concentrated in minority and Democratic areas likely disenfranchised
tens of thousands of legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but
became discouraged by the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions
were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican officials: Mark
Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, admitted the challenges “can’t
help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration.”
- Mr.
Blackwell’s decision to prevent voters who requested absentee
ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able
to receive provisional ballots 6 likely disenfranchised thousands,
if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors. A
federal court found Mr. Blackwell’s order to be illegal and in
violation of HAVA.
Second,
on election day, there were numerous unexplained anomalies and irregularities
involving hundreds of thousands of votes that have yet
to be accounted for:
- There
were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation
of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection,
Due Process and the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwell’s
apparent failure to institute a single investigation into these many
serious allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty under
Ohio law to investigate election irregularities.
- We
learned of improper purging and other registration errors by election
officials that likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide. The
Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga
County alone over 10,000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as
a result of official registration errors.
- There
were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the
vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem
was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which
had an undervote rate of over 25% each – accounting for nearly
6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to
vote for president.
- There
were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties
throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic
machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column;
(ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing
an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI states
that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting records of Perry county
show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts, significantly
less ballots than voters in other precincts, and voters casting more
than one ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded
Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more
votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history;
(v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known
thirdparty candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates
had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; (vi)
in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect
98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported,
an additional 19,000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush.
Third,
in the post-election period we learned of numerous irregularities in
tallying provisional ballots and conducting and completing the recount that
disenfanchised thousands of voters and call the entire recount procedure
into question (as of this date the recount is still not complete):
- Mr.
Blackwell’s failure to articulate clear and consistent standards
for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in the loss of thousands
of predominantly minority votes. In Cuyahoga County alone,
the lack of guidance and the ultimate narrow and arbitrary review standards
significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out of 24,472 provisional
ballots were ruled invalid, the highest proportion in the state.
- Mr.
Blackwell’s failure to issue specific standards for the recount
contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of both the Due
Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses. We
found innumerable irregularities in the recount in violation of Ohio
law, including (i) counties which did not randomly select the precinct
samples; (ii) counties which did not conduct a full hand court after
the 3% hand and machine counts did not match; (iii) counties which
allowed for irregular marking of ballots and failed to secure and
store ballots and machinery; and (iv) counties which prevented witnesses
for candidates from observing the various aspects of the recount.
- The
voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted that it engaged
in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to
provide “cheat sheets” to those counting the ballots. The
cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should
find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should
calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid
doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.
Download
Full PDF Document
Size: 3.22 MB
102 Pages |