any guesses why issues 2,3,4,5 failed ?

[MeDeMax]

65:35 across the board ?

[BattyDem]

1. Could it be ....DIEBOLD?

:grr:

Does anyone really belive that ANY American would not support measures to have their votes counted? :eyes:

The people of Ohio need to make some serious noise about this, otherwise their votes will never count again.

[Kukesa]

27. It could be, but probably not.

The issues were too long and people didn't understand them.

There was NO good print information distributed in the Dayton area.

The negative ads suggested taxes would increase if the issues passed.

We've got to stop crying in our beer, sober up, and make this state BLUE again. If we can go around the local Democratic party, let's do it.

Now, HOW do we do it?

[BattyDem]

31. Don't you have "interpretive statements" on the ballot?

My state gives us the question/proposition the way it was written and then they provide an interpretation for those of us that never went to law school, LOL!

Also, both sides of an issue tend to bombard us with info (on paper, radio and television) before an election, so we get an opportunity to make an educated decision. What a shame that Dayton ended up voting against something that would have been good for them. :-(

[Kukesa]

32. No "interpretive statements" for us.

We have to wade through all that legal stuff and it was confusing, damned confusing. I was familiar with all the issues and still found it confusing.

And, we were using electronic voting machines for the first time, too.

Maybe someday Ohio will grow up and make it a little easier for the average voter.

[femrap]

44. Many of the County Dem Chairs opposed RON....

we had to raise a stink in Hamilton Cty. to get them on the Dem sample ballot.

Seems their thinking is that Dems will make a comeback in the state in '06 elections...we will have Sec'y of State office (Jennifer Brunner...who is terrific). And we will then be able to re-district. Issue 3 hurt local politicians by lowering the amount they could recieve from donors.

The anti-RON also had the Christian Fascists working for them...braindead people who believe Jesus talks to only Repukes.

The anti-RONs had shitloads of $....and their ads were complete LIES...what else is new.

The RON coordinator here was AWFUL....did absolutely NOTHING. No organizational skills whatsoever. Pathetic. And I am sick to think of how much he was paid.

Plus, people of Ohio are ignorant. I tell the sheeple that God gave 'em brains...use them!

[kansasblue]

2. I'm really disappointed about 5.

Ohio really needed that one. I don't understand.

(non partisan control of elections)

[MeDeMax]

12. 4 was the only one in doubt

in my mind, I heard dem whispers that non-passage of 4 (redistricting) would benefit dems going forward (after 2006).

as some pointed out below, people either went for or against all 4 issues...sad, sad.

[In Truth We Trust]

3. Paper ballots NOW!!! Hand counts NOW!!! n/t

[BillORightsMan]

38. Hear! Hear! for paper ballots!

Once again, I present to you:

:applause:****PAPER, PEN & PEOPLE****:applause:
1. Paper and pen is the obvious choice for casting ballots.
2. Instead of having appointed people, there should be a pool of all registered voters, that are picked AT RANDOM, much like the way jurors are picked. (Perhaps BOE officials should be elected, too!)
3. Add to this that companies MUST give employees PAID days off for training and working Election Day. It's OUR Republic and OUR democracy! Let the voters run their own elections! Tell me, what red-blooded, patriotic American wouldn't take two PAID days off work to ensure their democracy is working? Give the voters OWNERSHIP of the PROCESS! Power to the People!
4. This would also include no funny black boxes counting votes: Paper and pen and hand counting. This is how they STILL do it in Canada! No more republican-backed companies (ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia, TRIAD, et. al.) getting a WAD of OUR TAX $$$ on bogus, insecure machines and stealing our elections! Use Web-Cams to monitor the voting and counting, too.
5. Each precinct can use a simple adding machine with a triplicate paper tape. They FAX their results to the BOE of their county. The same process is repeated for counties to report totals to the state BOE. Instant Paper Trail!

I'd add that IF we MUST use ANY electronic tabulation, that it be OPEN-SOURCE code, available to the General Public for review. (Australia uses this now.) Hardware would also have to be scrutinized, since WiFi can easily be incorporated in any electronic device - takes about three chips.

Also, the paper ballots could use any number of security devices, similar to how money and checks are printed (microprint, bar codes, security threads and so forth) to prevent ballot duplication.

BUT Paper Pen and People should be the way of the day! Any electronic machine (especially the central tabulators) can break down or be hacked, no matter how secure!
:patriot:

[Epiphany4z]

4. The republicans

ran a very good sort of stealth campaign. I was listening to a rock station here the other night the dj...who never talks politics...says when you go to the polls don't be fooled read before you vote RON will cost ohio 90 million!

Computer phone calls from hell. My phone number looks like it still registered to this repub...I got calls non stop...LIBERALS want to steal election by passing these...they will cost ohio 90 mill.

A repub at my husbands work thought they where about eminent domain...?????

They where good at confusing people.

aww shit...I freaking hate ohio sometimes....sigh.

[zoeybug]

5. no clue

I can't figure out why people opposed to these issues would be worked up enough to vote.

Why people would be so opposed to voting by mail? Why would this issues fail by such a wide margin, even in democratic areas?

It's weird.

[Lerkfish]

6. successful campaign to confuse, I think.

also the previous parameters about issues didn't help...used to be, the slickest ads for or against an issue were a tipoff that the big business or rampant corrupt politicians were behind it....but the ads FOR the issues looked too slick, IMHO, even though they were saying the right things. similarly, the organization pushing them was generically named, which can arouse some suspicions that they were hiding something???

I'm just guessing.

It was good that unions came out for it, but they did over the phone with prerecorded messages that were quickly hung up on.
I saw very few newspaper ads to explain the issues better, and the tv ads seemed too simplistic? vote for a fairer election....mmmokay, what does that mean?

additionally, there were too many issues which diluted the impact of them individually.

of course, there's always diebold.

I think its odd to have an election on election fairness with diebold machines. seems like an oxymoron.

[roseBudd]

22. I bet the noncompetes on those issues will be really high...

I think a lot of people had no idea what to think and skipped them.

[Kukesa]

28. Unions? I'm in Dayton where DELPHI lives (for a while at least),

and right now, "union" is a bad word for anyone who isn't in one -- Or who isn't enlightened, such as you and I. :P

My husband is to the point that if unions are "pro" he's "anti." Doesn't make much sense for a well-educated, kind man to think that way, but he does.

[darkmaestro019]

7. Diebold, Diebold, Diebold

and oh yes--Diebold.

And I'll take that flag too--PAPER BALLOTS NOW. HAND COUNTS NOW.

[ClevelandSportsCurse]

8. People just didn't know

They didn't know or understand the issues very well. The ballot language was very dense and probably difficult for the average joe to understand. People didn't know how the issues would improve things. This made it very easy for Republicans to confuse voters even more.

No, Diebold did not shoot down these amendments. Fraud can only work when the race is close to begin with. Also, most Ohio counties do not have Diebold machines.

[dennis00]

11. yes we do

44 of 88 Ohio Counties voted on new Diebold machines with paper printouts. 3 or 4 couties used touchscreen machines. One county lost their new machines. Couldn't find them when they opened this morning. Lots of other problems here, voters going home with out voting, 8 page ballot, bady trained pollworers that didn't know how to attach the Diebold printers.

[dennis00]

15. my mistake

One precinct, not county, couldn't find their voting machines. Blackwell told poll workers to ignore the 5 minute voting limit. That is 5 minutes to get through an 8 page ballot. Ignoring the limit made the lines and the wait longer causing people to go home without voting. Enforcing the time limit would most likely cause voters to just give up and vote no on the issues.

[Kukesa]

33. Welcome to DU,dennis, and I agree

about the poorly trained poll workers. My husband left without casting his vote because the poll workers couldn't figure out why he couldn't "go back" and change a vote.

(It's OK, though -- he's a Repub. Actually, he's a liberal in Repub clothing and there's nothing I can do to enlighten him.)

[Kukesa]

29. Half the counties (44 of 'em) have Diebold machines.

Please correct me if I'm wrong; I can't find the link to a newspaper article (Dayton Daily News) that I read last week with that fact.

[BillORightsMan]

34. Diabolical Diebold? "44 counties" link...

44 of Ohio's 88 counties are now using Diebold Touchscreen systems FOR THE FIRST TIME! -WCPO

"I think there'll be mass confusion," said longtime poll worker Lee Walters of Lancaster.

~~~

Who could forget voters in Mahoning Valley pressing Kerry on their fancy Diebold Touchscreen and the machine showing a vote for Bu$h? Even after multiple tries???? Hmmmmmm.

The Diebold "paper trail" is a red herring, since IF the original tally could (conceivably) have votes "switched" (Kerry to Bu$h or "yes" to "no", even if it's every 5 or 10 or 100 votes) the threshold for the recount will never be reached, so the paper ballots with the REAL results will NEVER be counted. And, according to the BBV article I posted here Oct. 29, it appears there may have been an unfair or even illegal vendor evaluation of the Diebold systems. Yet Blackwell gave them his blessing.

Please visit Who's Counting? and read up on The Companies and The Technology chapters. In Lake County we use the Sequoia AVC Advantage that has no paper trail, only a little cartridge on the back of the machine. They load the cartridges into a central tabulator that "reads" the election results off the cartridges from all precincts. I'm not sure what Lake County BoE uses for punch-card absentee ballot tabulation.

The near identical results for EVERY issue certainly seems suspect.
Diabolical Diebold?

[Kukesa]

36. Thanx, BOR Man. Thanx a lot. n/t

[jen4clark]

42. Chiming in here

to encourage everyone to check out the link in BillORightsMan's post - Who's Counting.


It's got a lot of important information on the electronic election machine companies (almost without exception owned and run by convicted criminals - and I'm not exaggerating...). As BORM said, even if you just read and the THE COMPANIES and the TECHNOLOGY Chapters you'll have enough information to know we're fucked...

Once you know that, you'll want to read the But, What Can I Do? Chapter.

If we don't get this information out as far and wide as possible (we being the media and all...), none of our work will amount to a hill of beans when it comes to elections. I've been sending the link to everyone I can and have gotten very good feedback from those who have read it, including our State Senator Zurz.

The fact that First Ohio, Petro and the rest of the corrupt elite running the show sued last summer to keep the amendments off the ballot was a very good indication that they had no intention of letting them pass.

Also, yes, the language in the amendments was not short and simple enough for most voters to actually read, let alone understand. The big money was able to confuse people more and when people don't or can't understand something they'll usually vote NO.

The corruption in Ohio goes back many many years - this is where the Bush Crime Family got it's start:


From Wikipedia

{edited to add there are several links in the following excerpt that I'm not including here.}


- snip -

...Bush was president (c 1906-1927) of Buckeye Steel Castings of Columbus, Ohio, which (among other things) made railway parts for the Harrimans. The two families were closely associated at least until the end of World War II.

He was the first president of National Manufactures Association, and cofounder of Scioto Country Club and Columbus Academy. He was an avid sports buff.

In the spring of 1918, Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board of Bernard Baruch - a close associate of E.H. Harriman and Clarence Dillon - with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with weapons companies including Remington (at the time controlled by Percy Rockefeller- who along with Averill Harriman took time to arrange for Harriman's and Bush's sons Bunny Harriman and Prescott Bush to be admitted to Yale's Skull and Bones in 1916.) Remington dominance of ammunition and small arms contracts during World War I continued during Bush's government service and many years beyond.

He lost his wife Flora Sheldon on September 4, 1920 in Narragansett, Rhode Island when she was hit by a car. He remarried to Martha Bell Carter of Milwaukee.

Samuel Bush was a close advisor to President Herbert Hoover.

During the height of American isolationism, a Senate Munitions Inquiry, often called the Nye Committee after its chairman, Senator Gerald Nye, critically examined the military-industrial complex of government agencies, corporations, labor unions, and banking. The Nye Committee has been portrayed as a naive isolationist search for evil arms dealers ("Merchants of Death") who caused wars, underplaying the social, intellectual, political, and cultural currents of the 1930s which have more recently been re-examined (see reference Coulter). The Committee was formed in August 1933. It examined World War I military-industrial finances in January and February 1936. In spite of this second historical connection, most of the records and correspondence of Samuel P. Bush's arms-related work with the government were destroyed at the National Archives, in order 'to save space'.

Bush is interred at Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.

[dennis00]

40. Diebold machines

Tuesday DDN I Think. Glad to hear from another local DUer. I'm in Moraine.:hi:

[Kukesa]

46. Welcome to DU, Dennis! Glad to have you! n/t

[asthmaticeog]

9. Because people either voted for or against all of them?

:shrug:

[557188]

10. i am beyond words

The ads used scare tactics and mislead the voters. I'm so disappointed...I'm crushed.

I hate this state...ugh.

[asthmaticeog]

14. Welcome to DU.

I hear you - it just keeps getting worse here.

You know the Cuyahoga Dem Party chair endorsed a "no" vote on 2,3,4 & 5? I guess he figured that Dems might sweep the statehouse in '06, and he wanted HIS turn to be corrupt and anti-democratic. x(

[newyawker99]

47. Hi 557188!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[kevinbgoode]

13. Uh...well, of course...fear-and-smear

was at work in their confusion campaigns...and for godsakes. . .hasn't the religious Right pretty much declared Ohio their new holy state? Their organization of cults/churches vote enmasse according to the dictates of their ayatolluh. . .

[JWS]

16. low voter turnout

The campaigns here in cali were warning people gopenator was counting on low voter turnout. my guess is the dems didn't do a good job at getting people tothe polls. Oh yea, and the crooked, behind th scene crap that sent people to the wrong polls and made people go home early...

I also think there was a succesful campaign to confuse people as people have said.

[VolcanoJen]

17. My guess? Money.

They had it. They ran ads. They scared people.

We didn't have it. Our lone ad sucked.

[Eurobabe]

18. f-f-f-f-f-fear factor

all these dumb op-ad commercials in OH. This state is fucked.

[zbdent]

19. One of the comical "attacks", to me, was

that the one issue had "19 pages" and was "too long and confusing" - this from the party who wanted to have a vote for legislation 5 minutes after it was introduced - no time to read it - and called the cops on congressmen who were trying to buy enough time to read it . . .

[Kolesar]

20. Write that up and send it to the Pee Dee

Hey, I'm serious.

[zbdent]

24. Run by Alex Macheske?

The guy who threw a bash for Bush, and refused to allow the paper to endorse anybody, since the editors were going to endorse Kerry?

Yeah, right . . .

[Kolesar]

26. They might not run it, but they will read it

that's worth something

[roseBudd]

21. I am in OH, I am a policy wonk who gets all the emails from all the

progressive groups.

IMHO it was too many issues, they were really poorly understood, negative ads said they could cost taxpayers 90 million AND they were not presented as democratic issues so even heavily democratic counties didn't know that they should be for them.

I saw the negative ads that ran against RON in SW Ohio, did the NE Ohio newspapers really all editorialize against RON?

[Ninga]

23. I agree with rosebuds. Simple Simon mentality among voters.

[MeDeMax]

25. some NE ohio newspapers gave a nod on 2, no position on 3 and

talked down 4 & 5.

The RON people called the issues bi-partisan only to have it torpedoed by the repubs.

You loose credibility with your base when you call something "Bi-P" and the other side calls it activist liberals at work.

I think issue 2 would have passed easily had it been the only one of the ballot and had it been phrased in defined in 2 or 3 lines.

[racsan]

30. I can't believe it swung so far on all 4 issues. n/t

[newyawker99]

48. Hi racsan!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[BillORightsMan]

35. If it wasn't Diebold Mystery Machinations...

...then I would think the length of each Amendment and subsequent confusion over what each says could be a plausible cause.

Also, I thought setting up the independent bodies for redistricting (Issue 4) and running elections (Issue 5) was ON FACE a good idea, they did not provide term limits for those appointed or how they can be replaced. In regard to that, the Swiftie attack might have been effective ("Can't be voted out - Won't hold elected officials accountable").

I'm not sure WHERE the Swifties came up with the $90,000,000 figure, but THAT certainly SCARED many people. It certainly didn't help that the ODP ignored or even (in some cases) dissed the Issues.

Still, that 65:35 margin on ALL FOUR ISSUES seems highly suspect.
:banghead:

[Kukesa]

37. Welcome to DU, BillORightsMan, Welcome! n/t

[pro_blue_guy]

39. I know why the issues failed.

This is Ohio. No explanation needed.

[MostlyLurks]

41. Several Factors

1. All the issues were lumped together: everybody either voted all for or all against. I think anytime that happens, the con position will win because people are more skeptical of government than they are trusting of it, meaning the natural tendency is to vote against something rather than for it

2. Ineffective ads: the pro-RON ads (especially TV) were abysmal - did not in any way talk about what RON was. They would have done well to have 1 ad for each issue so they could explain why 2 was good, why 3 was good, etc. By lumping them all together in the ad campaign, they caused item #1 above.

2a. Meanwhile, the con-RON ads were good in that they made (at least in some) specific arguments against the issues (those arguments were spurious, but I think we all know that doesn't matter where advertising is concerned).

3. Lack of endorsements. Given that I don't read any print news beyond the Sunday Dogpatch (and that only for the coupon flyers), I don't know for sure, but wasn't RON panned by virtually every major OH newspaper? RON's web site lists only one newspaper endorsement that I can find, and it's from the Middletown Journal. Where's the PD, the CD, the Blade, etc.?

4. Issue overload. Personally, I think RON, while well-conceived, was possibly too much too soon. Perhaps, hindsight being 20/20, it would have been better to identify the most crucial issue (redistricting would have been my choice, but absentee and by-mail voting would have been good as well) and place that on the ballot as a single issue. This would have allowed RON to focus their message on one issue, rather than spread it over 4. Additionally, would have been less confusing for voters. Granted, it would have taken 4 election cycles to get everything voted on, but it may have helped focus the message to do it one issue at a time.

5. Theft. I saw polls as late as last week that showed, at minimum, issue 2 passing overwhelmingly (something like 60-40) with the others closer. Odd.

Mostly

[moontaurus]

43. California has a voter guide with DEBATES in it!

Ohioans were scared and confused by the issues. When you're confused, you vote no. Like I did with issue 5.

I vote in Ohio, but live a good part of the year in Cali. To learn about the Ohio issues, I had to comb the internet for piecemeal newspaper editorials and the like. Of course I found the Reform Ohio Now website, and that helped, only because I was sympathetic. (I never did decide what I thought of issue 5 -- nobody was any help on that. Seems it served Taft and big business hugely, even though Dem's were pushing for it.)

In Cali, every voter receives a voter guide weeks in advance. You can also find them laying around, and also on the internet. The guide lays out not just the text of each issue (which in modern times is useless because the text is always so intentionally convoluted and misleading), but *opinions with rebuttals* by key proponents and opponents of each issue. THAT makes a difference. It offsets advertising.

In Cali, people were likewise put off by the issues, but not because they were in the dark. Why do I think that? Because voters had a foundation to understand that the initiatives were a sham, despite millions of dollars of advertising to the contrary. Voters made a point of showing up at the polls. (Sadly, however, I do think the coattails of outrage against Arnie's special interest election brought down two needed initiatives -- reigning in big energy, and mandating discounted prescription medication.) My girlfriend canvassed neighborhoods; it was clear people had a grasp of the Cali special election, and had strong informed opinions.

When people read DEBATES, people are not in the dark. Debates contain the analysis voters absolutely require. If political groups are on the ball, they are saavy about feeding the debates in the guide. The voter guide, with all the issues hopefully smartly debated in one place, reaches every voter. I cannot overstate the importance of this.

[femrap]

45. The Voter Guides in CA....does the Sec'y of State

send those out? I forgot all about those....they are great. Maybe if we can get Jennifer Brunner elected as Sec'y of State in Ohio, she could implement something like that.

Thx. for reminding me about those.

[newyawker99]

49. Hi moontaurus!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: