ohio suppression

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http://www.law.gwu.edu/facweb/soverton/How%20Challengers%20and%20Provisional%20Ballots%20Impact%202004%2011-1-04%201015%20am.doc

On November 1, 2004, federal district judges ruled that a substantial likelihood existed that Ohio's challenger statute was applied in an unconstitutional manner and barred partisan challengers from the polls throughout the state of Ohio.  Early in the morning on Election Day, a majority of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overruled the district judges and allowed challengers at Ohio polls.  The U.S. Court of Appeals judges appointed by Reagan (Ryan) and George W. Bush (Rogers) voted to allow challengers, whereas the Clinton appointee (Cole) sided with the district court judges and dissented.
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While the federal Help America Vote Act requires that states offer provisional ballots, it largely defers to states to determine whether provisional ballots get counted.  The federal law does not specify what steps a state must take to confirm the eligibility of the voter who casts the provisional ballot.  As a result, various counties and states are likely to use different standards to count provisional ballots.  Unfortunately, whether or not a voter's provisional ballot will count will often depend on where the voter lives.  
Further, many states lack standards to deal with the multitude of contingencies in counting provisional ballots.  If the election is close, the cloudy question of which provisional ballots should be counted is very likely to attract lawsuits.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/02/news/ohio.html
The appeals court said the Republicans could put 3,500 challengers inside polling places. Democrats also planned to send more than 2,000 monitors to the polls, though they said those people would not challenge voters.
The Republicans say that challenging, a practice that has been allowed under Ohio law for decades but rarely used, weeds out fraud often missed by election workers. Democrats assert that the challenges disproportionately single out low-income and minority voters, which Republicans deny.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/02/ohio.challengers.ap/index.html

Mark Weaver, legal counsel for the Ohio Republican Party, said Republican challengers had been told Monday to show up outside the polls pending the appeals court ruling. "We think the 6th Circuit made the right decision," he said

In her ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott in Cincinnati said plaintiffs in a lawsuit likely would be able to prove that Ohio's law allowing polling place challengers was unconstitutional.
Dlott said the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process questioning voters about their eligibility would impede voting. She ruled in a lawsuit by a black couple who said GOP plans to deploy challengers to largely black precincts was meant to intimidate and block black voters.
In the second case, U.S. District Judge John Adams of Akron said poll workers, not outside challengers, are the ones to determine if voters are eligible. Adams ruled in a suit by the Summit County Democratic Party, which claimed the registration challenges do not give a disqualified voter a chance to appeal in time to cast a ballot.
In ruling on both cases, the appeals court said the Ohio law authorizing the presence of challengers at the polling places is presumed to be constitutional and "has been on the books for a decade."
Based on the lower court rulings, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's office had told county elections boards to bar all challengers from polling places. After the appeals court overturned them, office spokesman Carlo LoParo said officials were "trying to figure out a way to get that information to Ohio's poll workers."
The GOP registered about 3,500 challengers, and Democrats say they've registered thousands but won't give a specific number.

*****
http://jesse-taylor.jerryforohio.com/story/2004/10/28/151754/29

How to challenge the poll challengers!
Republicans have hired poll challengers to disrupt the voting process in predominantly democratic neighborhoods.  They are relying on the authority of Ohio Revised Code 3505.20, which states in part:  "Any person offering to vote may be challenged at the polling place by any challenger..."  Fortunately, there is also a law prohibiting anyone--including "challengers"--from entering the polling place for any reason except for voting:  "No person, not an election official, employee, witness, challenger, or police officer, shall be allowed to enter the polling place during the election, except for the purpose of voting."  Ohio Revised Code 3501.35.  This statute also commands the police to "strictly enforce the observance of this section.  Loitering near the polling place is also a crime under Ohio Revised Code 3599.24.  If these Republican challengers are hired help, they are not going to be allowed in or near the polling place because they will not be there for the purpose of voting.  If anyone challenges your right to vote, call the police and report that a crime is in process, and ask them to enforce the laws preventing loitering near the polling place.

Where were the Ohio Challengers?

12.2% Allen
27.4  Cuyahoga
17.9  Franklin   
23.4  Hamilton   
17.0  Lucas       
15.9  Mahoning   
19.9  Montgomery       
13.2  Summit

If I were trying to interrupt and delay voting in predominately democratic areas by sending "challengers", these counties would be a good place to start.
Let's ask them.
Here's how to get a hold of Ohio GOP County Chairmen.

Allen County
County Chairman Keith Cheney
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
2081 W. Elm Street
Lima, OH 45805
Phone:419-331-5655 (hq) 419-228-7040 (h)
http://www.allencountyohiogop.com/
republicans@allencountyohiogop.com

Cuyahoga County
County Chairman Jim Trakas
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
Leader Bldg, Suite One, 526 Superior Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44114
Phone:216-621-5415 (hq)
Fax: 216-621-1841
http://www.cuyahogacountygop.com/
jtrakas@rpcc.net <jtrakas@rpcc.net>

Hamilton County
County Chairman Michael Barrett
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
Hamilton County Republican Headquarters
700 Walnut Street, Suite 309
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Phone:513-381-5454 (hq)
Fax: 513-977-3545
http://www.rp-hamilton.com/
mrbarrett@barrettweber.com

Lucas County
County Chairwoman Bernadette Noe
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
8200 W. Central Ave.
Toledo, OH 43617
Phone:419-842-1777 (hq)
http://www.lucasgop.org/
legalnoe@aol.com

Mahoning County
County Chairman Clarence R. Smith, Jr.
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
621 Boardman-Canfield Rd.
Boardman, OH 44512
Phone:330-629-7006

Montgomery County
County Chairman John White
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
211 S. Main Street
Suite 610
Dayton, OH 45402
Phone:937-461-1776
Fax: 937-461-1774

Summit County
County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
Summit Co. Republican Party Headquarters
520 South Main Street, Suite 2437
Akron, OH 44311
Phone:330-434-9151 (w)
reppty@neo.rr.com <reppty@neo.rr.com>

Did you read what Greg Palast uncovered... AGAIN??

---Kerry won. Here are the facts.---

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

---Whose Votes Are Discarded?---

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely-leaving a 'hanging chad,'-or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

---The Impact Of Challenges---

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws-almost never used-allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

---Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote---

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality-if all votes are counted-is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts-Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

To read the article in full, click here: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

---

Contact: media@gregpalast.com

View Greg Palast's BBC Television film, "Bush Family Fortunes," available on DVD from The Disinformation Company at http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm

To receive Greg's investigative reports click here: http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm
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