News: Lucas County, OH, suspends election workers

[k8conant]

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/news/stories/20041204/localnews/1695927.html

Lucas County elections workers suspended for possible clerical error


AP

TOLEDO (AP) -- Four employees of the Lucas County Board of Elections were placed on paid suspension due to a possible clerical error in the Nov. 2 election process, board members said Friday.

Paula Ross said the four-member board asked director Paula Hicks-Hudson and her deputy to complete an internal investigation and report to the board Wednesday.

The four employees are on paid suspension until then, she said, declining to elaborate on the possible error.

"I would say it would be fair to characterize it as a minor clerical error," said Ross, a Democrat.

Sam Thurber, a Republican board member, said the four employees are two supervisors and two clerks.

"I don't expect it will change much of anything in terms of results. It's just some internal procedures that appear to be not right," he said Friday night.

[shraby]

1. Hmmmmmmm

Suspended for a "minor" clerical error? Hardly likely for a minor error.

[jbnow]

8. What do you mean?

If people make minor errors they are lucky they aren't fired! If my workers EVER fell short of perfection they would be suspended.

OK, that was sarcasm. What a very stupid quote to make about the suspensions in these circumstances. It would have been better just to say "no comment" then four suspensions for a minor error. Four people made a tiny error...Four. Minor. Errors. Election workers.

[berniew1]

34. There were lots bigger problems in other counties well documented; see doc

Systematic Voter Suppression: STEALING VOTES IN Ohio Urban Areas (by ward/precinct)
Stealing Votes in Columbus
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/columbus.htm
Stealing Votes in Cleveland http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/cleveland.htm
?
www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?sort=date&sele...

Indications of possible ballot box stuffing in S.W. Ohio counties www.flcv.com/swohio.html
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/warren.htm

Indications of irregularities or fraud in several Ohio counties
www.flcv.com/fraudioh.html

Favoritism in the Suburbs http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/suburbs.htm

Analysis Indicates Kerry could win Ohio with a "fair process" and fair vote count
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/uncounted.htm

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. 4 Fisher Street Canton, New York 13617 [phone] [e-mail]

[Carl Brennan]

35. That's the first thing I thought too. Maybe they are people who

know too much, who would not keep their lips zipped in an investigation. That's just a guess at this point, but I would think they would be worth interviewing.

[bleever]

2. FOUR people involved in a "minor clerical error"? Hmmm...n/t

[texpatriot2004]

3. What exactly is the "minor error" ? n/t

[merh]

11. Who knows, maybe the minor error was that

their errors were detected? :shrug:

Just don't be obvious or get caught!

[mirandapriestly]

13. HA! Most likely...n/t

[TripleD]

17. oops! (deleted)

posted in wrong place.

[seito]

25. lol... It's only cheatin if you get caught... n/t

[Pithy Cherub]

4. Curious...

"doesn't expect much Change." That means there will be a change. This is also 4 out of how many for Lucas County? drip, drip, drip...

[sportndandy]

5. Let me add: Hmmmm....

[acmavm]

6. There seems to have been a lot of 'minor' clerical errors in Ohio.

And Florida. The idiots are truly running the asylum.

[Stand and Fight]

7. Rest of the Article

Thurber said the Lucas County elections board is sensitive to assuring proper procedures because it is under administrative oversight of the secretary of state.

Hicks-Hudson announced during Friday's meeting that she was stepping down for personal reasons, Ross said.

"Paula Hicks-Hudson had been telling us for some time this was her intention, and now that we are certified she told us Friday that she will tell us at our Dec. 8 board meeting her exact timeline," Ross said.

[shraby]

10. Another Hmmmmmm......

election workers suspended for "minor" errors AND the director is stepping down in the same area of Ohio????? Do I smell something?

[KittyWampus]

30. Let Me Also Add To The Chorus Of Hmmmmmmmmmm's

Hmm...

[Senator]

9. It's turning into a Seinfeld episode...

..."not that there's anything wrong with the result."

We should skip all this: www.thedeanpeople.com

[geo]

12. And WHAAAT's with these People who...

CAaan't count the VOTE? (That was my best Sienfeld impression). :) -G

[txindy]

14. Four people made one "minor clerical error?"

Four made the same error? Four combined to make one error? One made the error and three failed to catch it?

I have a lot of trouble believing that this was "minor" or that anyone would be suspended, with pay, for making a "minor clerical error."

This is interesting.

[k8conant]

15. I wonder if this suit is related--

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204A.shtml

Litigating the Election
By Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t

• On Election Day, Sarah White filed a class action against Blackwell and the Board of Elections of Lucas County, claiming they violated the Help America Vote Act, passed in the wake of the 2000 election debacle, that gives voters in federal elections a right to cast provisional ballots. White claimed that although she requested an absentee ballot one month before the election, she never received one. Blackwell ruled that persons who had requested, but not received their absentee ballots, would not be permitted to cast a provisional ballot. U.S. District Judge David A. Katz, however, ordered that "the Board of Elections of Lucas County shall immediately advise all precincts to issue provisional ballots to those voters who appear at the voting place and assert their eligibility to vote, including that the voter is a registered voter in the precinct in which he or she desires to vote, and that the voter is eligible to vote in an election for Federal office."

[Blue Diadem]

16. Some more info in Toledo Blade

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041204/NEWS09/412040418

Elections chief resigns, 4 staff are suspended

snip:

The county, which certified its vote Wednesday, will have to amend its official certification with the state, in part because of an apparent failure of employees to properly do their jobs, board Chairman Bernadette Noe said.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said yesterday that Mr. Blackwell "continues to have grave concerns" about the performance of the county elections office, and said he will soon intercede to make changes.





Here is another article about an incident from neighboring Wood County. Hope it's ok to add it on here, I don't think I can start new posts yet.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041203/NEWS09/412030389

Investigation sought in poll data's removal

SNIP:
BOWLING GREEN - Wood County elections officials have asked County Prosecutor Ray Fischer to investigate whether a local Republican broke any laws when he removed a list of registered voters from a polling place Nov. 2.
Ed Sitter, who headed the Bush re-election campaign in Wood County, allegedly took the Middleton Township North precinct list from the Haskins fire hall shortly before 4 p.m. on Election Day.




We heard the call on our police scanner on election day, but never heard anything more about it until it hit the small town paper a couple days ago.(sorry not available online).

The Blade's article doesn't go into it as much as our local small paper did. From our local paper, the man swooped into the polls and scooped up the book without notifying anyone what he was doing. He
came to the polling place in a vehicle from Michigan(although he lives in our area) and was with 2 Republican party officials.

In addition, our local paper, The Sentinel-Tribune states that "Mr. Sitter attended a holiday reception at the White House Wed. evening (12/1) as a thanks for his work on the presidential campaign."

"A republican member of the board of elections, said this morning tha Sitter and the others in the vehicle on election day were volunteers for the Bush-Cheney campaign and not for the local party candidates."

[John Q. Citizen]

36. OurVotesCount-Ohio, may I repost your post in a new thread?

[Blue Diadem]

38. Yes you may..

and that's very kind of you to offer.

[Pirate Smile]

18. kick

[JD Lau]

19. kick.

[TripleD]

20. I printed out screen shots election night

from the Ohio SOS website and at 10:36pm Lucus Co gave Cobb 4,685 votes, Bush had 1,917 votes and Kerry had exactly 0 votes.

Don't know if this is related but I thought that was strange.

I can't search but I mentioned this in a thread on election night and asked somebody to get a screenshot - so there's a thread I posted in election eve with a screenshot of this if someone cares to look for it.

[trudyco]

21. What is the official count for Lucas Co now? And wood? nt

[jmknapp]

22. Here's a spreadsheet with the unofficial count

http://copperas.com/lucas/lucas.xls

Still haven't seen the official results.

[k8conant]

23. I can't find the official results either..

the unofficial are still posted at the Lucas County Election site. where you got yours:

http://apps.co.lucas.oh.us/election/electionnov04.pdf

[k8conant]

24. Here's a screen shot

I found this at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1288384#1288444

trumad Tue Nov-02-04 10:37 PM
Response to Reply #31
33. screen shot

[LisaL]

27. Wow! Cobb did so well in Lucas county.

:eyes:
I guess we are finding out what their little clerical error was-did they somehow manage to give Kerry's votes to Cobb?

[jbnow]

31. Cobb ended up with zero in Lucas

Do you know how they explained the initial error? That is..was it a posting error or a machine error?

[EMunster]

26. Get a load of this article, featuring a jubilant Ms. Hicks-Hudson....

...on election day, as well as a curiously prescient Kathy Blackwell:


Statewide voter turnout was running close to the 72.6 percent predicted by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, spokesman James Lee said.

"Turnout has obviously been extremely strong. There have been lines in a lot of locations, but voters have shown extreme cooperation and civility," Mr. Lee said.

In Lucas County, turnout was on its way to exceeding the 73 percent estimated by elections Director Paula Hicks-Hudson.


http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041103/NEWS09/411030355/-1/NEWS

[trudyco]

28. Is Voinovich or Fingerhut the democratic candidate?

I've been looking at these numbers. It seems like sometimes the Senators have higher numbers than Kerry. But I can't tell who is the reublican senatorial candidate because sometimes the senatorial numbers looked like they flipped! I would think there'd be a correlation between the preference for Kerry and the preference for the democratic Senator (with usually the Senator having fewer votes than Kerry because fewer people vote for Senator, but very close. Is either senator the type that would cause cross over votes?)

Very confusing,
trudyco

[k8conant]

29. George Voinovich is the incumbent Republican

He would probably cause crossover votes.

[sickinohio]

32. This is also the county where the Democratic and Kerry-Edwards

campaign headquarters was broken in to with computers stolen a
couple weeks before the election.

[stella2cat]

33. deleted by author

[hootinholler]

37. Link please?

Can you back this up with an independant report?

[Celebration]

39. Link

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041013/NEWS03/410130378

That what you were asking for?

[EMunster]

40. elevate this to its own thread...n/t

[trudyco]

41. Don't know how to start a thread but Senatorial race looks wierd

the numbers go:
Precinct1 Repub for Senator except F and K
Precinct2 Dem
Precinct3 Repub except for C, I
Precinct4 Dem
Precinct5 Repub except for B, J
Precinct6 Dem except for E,F
Precinct7 Repub except for B
Precinct8 Dem
Precinct9 Repub except for D
Precinct10 Dem
Precinct11 Repub except for A
Do the precincts really go back and forth like that? The numbers for the Repub senator in the first couple of Repub precincts looks like they synchronize with the Kerry votes. Like maybe they were flipped from the democratic senator to the republican senator. Is the encumbant senator that popular? Either a LOT of people crossed over to Kerry or else a LOT crossed over to the repub senator. Wierd.

Now the R/D/R/D pattern changes:
Precinct 11 is Repub, and Precinct 12 is Rep (except D,j, L)
Precinct 13 is Dem, and Precinct 14 is Dem
Precinct 15 (except A tie, G, H, I, O) is Rep, Precinct 16 Rep
Now the RR/DD/RR changes to DDDD/RRRR:
Precinct 17,18,19,20 all dem, Precinct 21,22,23,24 all repub.


Maybe it's all coincidence. Wierd patterns. Votes for the repub senator better matching Kerry.

[k8conant]

42. Re: Senatorial race looks weird

What county is this? Still Lucas?