Stark County done recounting 191,781 ballots: Kerry lost 1/ * gained 4

[kuozzman]

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?Category=9&ID=198044&r=1

“It was a blind count,” he said, explaining counters did not know the official numbers — so they weren’t counting to hit a target figure.

By law, the board first had to hand count 3 percent of the ballots. In Stark County, that amounted to roughly 6,000 ballots, or 13 precincts.

Since the hand count of that segment matched, the remaining 97 percent of ballots were counted with conventional tabulating machines, instead of by hand.


The official and new post-recount vote totals for the two candidates are: Kerry 95,337 and Bush 92,215.

The total ballots cast were 191,781 in both the counts.

[leftyandproud]

1. well, sh!t.

[saracat]

2. Nothing is changing much anywhere. This is too odd.

[whirlygigspin]

3. smooth ain't it?

more Soviet bumper crops at %100

I feel so good now, don't you?

[saracat]

4. And who picked these counties?

[shraby]

5. And what is the brand of the machine?

[fliesincircles]

11. All 88 counties are being recounted.

The 3% precincts that were chosen for the initial handcount were pick by an EXCEL spreadsheet program. The Green coordinator was given a copy of the program and is going to run some simulations to see if it is truly "random".

[libertypirate]

30. Blackwell, sent a list...

[skids]

6. They obviously weren't allowed to examine undervotes.

And the precincts were fudged either as a way to keep the undervotes from being counted, or in addition to simply not examining them by hand at all.

Stark has fishy undervote figures. How could a recount miss the fact that in CANTON CITY 4-B, 10% of ballots had no vote for president?
There is a whole group of precincts with high undervotes, and guess what? They are mostly Democratic. In fact, most of them are precincts where Kerry won by a large number in the March Primary. Try to figure that one out.

Of the 11 precincts where undervote was over 5%, Kerry won or tied with all Democrats combined in all but 2 in March. Which is odd, because he failed to do so in 176 of 364 precincts.

But what do you expect when you have a BoE that is complicit in attempting to avoid a full hand recount at all costs.

Note that Kerry won Stark, and Gore lost it. Still doesn;t mean it was clean, though.

[fliesincircles]

8. Absolutely correct

"But what do you expect when you have a BoE that is complicit in attempting to avoid a full hand recount at all costs."

This is the most important thing to remember about the Ohio recount. When the handcount in Stark County matched the machines(AFTER adjustments to previous overvotes) the director was literally looking for someone to high five.

What is not made clear in any of this process, is that the Greens wanted to examine the rejected provisionals. That actually was their main objective (more so than the handcount). They were refused.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

16. Was anyone else watching Ohio's casting of ballots on cSpan?

Blackheart was giving an introduction, and I WISH I had memorized the line he used, but first he talked about how well their election went, and then he said something like when the recount was done it would come out perfectly, or "just right" or something like that, and he drew the words out for emphasis. He was smiling and way too sure of himself, like someone who knew he would get away with a crime.

[fliesincircles]

18. Didn't see Katherine

But at the BoE board meeting, just before the Stark recount, the director used the phrase "we will follow the directives of the Secretary of State" at least three times. One directive was that witnesses could not speak to the "workers" counting. The whole point of the process was to AVOID a full hand recount, at least from the BoE's point of view. Lots of repub witnesses, really bad atmosphere.

[DemonFighterLives]

24. I saw that

It was very smirky and not funny. Total gloating and blind allegiance to the chimp and blackwell. I don't remember exact words, but a few lines may my radar beep. The Governor included.

[righteous1]

19. That could be, but the undervotes

have historically not yielded many additional votes. In FL. 2000 ~ 7% of the undervotes ended up having a discerbable presidential vote. That's 6500 additional potential votes. JK might pick up 1900 or so votes

[skids]

20. These undervotes are special.

These undervotes are fishy, by their distribution statistically.

While it is true some undervoting does occur, and some occurs due to machine malfunction, something is up with Ohio's. Now it could be that machine malfunctions were "arranged", and a hand recount wouldn't catch that very well, but it deserves a look, and it isn't going to get one.

[righteous1]

21. Just to give you a bit of perspective the

undervotes number in 2000 was 97,000 , 2004 93,000. The total actally went down and on 8% increase in voter turnout

[bemis12]

23. Stop confusing with facts

Dammit. They're fishy.

[skids]

25. If you want the stark per-precinct data...

I have it. Take a look for yourself.

[skids]

27. I'm aware.

I never said that there was no fraud in 2000, now did I?

Here are some more complete summary numbers for you.

In 2000:

Number of normal ballots: 149843
Undercount of normal ballots: 1.8% (2701 ballots)
Bush/Kerry in normal ballots: 102%
Number of absentees: 13218 one out of every 11.34 ballots
Undercount of absentee ballots: 3.9% (516 ballots)
Bush/Kerry absentees: 128%

In 2004:

Number of normal ballots: 172314
Undercount of normal ballots: 1.7% (2904 ballots)
Kerry/Bush in normal ballots: 104%
Number of absentees: 19681 one out of every 8.85 ballots
Undercount of absentee ballots: 3.2% (638 ballots)
Bush/Kerry absentees: 104%

[righteous1]

28. Ok, so what is this data telling me or better

yet,what is it telling you?

[skids]

29. A few things, but not as much as the precinct data.

The first being that I don't have any clue where that 97,000 figure came from... if you're talking statewide, then naturally they went down -- many counties aren't acknowleging any undervotes in their results at all.

The second being that undercounts didn't go down very much at all in the machines in Stark (absentee undercounts did signifigantly.)

And that Dems mailed it in like crazy.

The rest, you either have to fire up a spreadsheet for, or just remain agnostic.

(edit: said precincts, meant counties. Evidence of sleep needed. I'll check this thread after a nap or two.)

[fliesincircles]

26. Undervotes pretty much ignored

There were dozens of "chad" situations that the BoE had to "decide". Whenever possible they chose NOT to fix it. Before the final machine recount, all ballots were "fanned" like a deck of cards to check for "chads". There were literally hundreds of chads on the floor. But the machines didn't miss a beat. Go figure. There were close to 1500 provisionals tossed in Stark county, but the BoE would not let them be "observed".

[Brundle_Fly]

7. Kerry Won Stark County

John F. Kerry (D) 92,295 50%
George W. Bush (R) 89,859 49%

[liberal N proud]

9. Kerry won the county originally and in the recount

Nothing to be upset about it is only 5 vote difference.
Stark was probably clean, there were no real reports of trouble from there so lets concentrate on areas where there was trouble, big trouble and the results were not so favorable.

[skids]

22. If you are under the delusion...

That votes weren't stolen from Kerry or added to Bush in counties where Kerry won, even in this one where Gore lost in 2004, you're not grasping the whole of it. Padding can and does occur. Now it's obvious that anything that went on in Stark was not as effective as perhaps Rove would like it, but something isn't right with the returns there just the same.

(BTW, in Stark, Dems increased their absentee vote drastically, moreso than their poll turnout.)

[Junkdrawer]

10. Why doesn't "Kerry lost 1/ * gained 4" force a county wide hand recount..

The law says "match" not "close".

[bemis12]

12. Because it does not have to match the original totals

They count 3% by hand, then run those thru the machine. THOSE counts must match. Not the original count.

[Junkdrawer]

14. So..in a system with a 2.5% error rate...

the first machine count and the second recount differ by 5 votes...and the hand recount happens to match the second count EXACTLY??? - just as it must to prevent a county wide hand recount.

And this same scenario is occurring in every reported county on Ohio?

Is that what I'm supposed to believe?

[bemis12]

15. It's not that difficult to believe

They count 'em and run them thru the machine. They only way it CAN'T match is if the machine just isn't able to count votes accurately.

[Junkdrawer]

17. County after county - perfect matches in the samples...

yeah, it is difficult to believe.

[fliesincircles]

13. The 3% handcount "matched"

The Kerry -1/* +4 number is from the 97% machine recount.