It seems pretty clear they didn't follow state law. Does that matter in Ohio?
Prosecutor to probe Cuyahoga County recount
2 written complaints allege problems in '04 presidential
election
By Stephen Dyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
CLEVELAND - Erie County Prosecutor Kevin J. Baxter is
investigating whether the Cuyahoga County Board of
Elections broke the law in its recount of ballots from the
November presidential election.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason appointed Baxter
as a special prosecutor in the case because the board of
elections is Mason's client, which could pose a conflict of
interest, said Mason spokeswoman Jamie Dalton.
Baxter said he didn't know yet whether the allegations have
any validity. He said his investigators will begin
interviewing people in the next several weeks.
"If it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere,'' Baxter said. "We'll
just start from the beginning... This is rather
preliminary.''
The probe stems from two requests written to Mason: one
from minor-party presidential candidates David Cobb and
Michael Badnarik, and another from entrepreneurial
consultant Edward Michael Caner.
Dalton said Mason turned over the papers March 2.
The complaints allege that the board violated state law
because the precincts it recounted were neither randomly
selected nor was the opening of ballots properly witnessed.
In addition, Cobb and Badnarik allege that there were
problems with the board's ballot-transfer cases, which can
reveal whether the precinct used the ballots assigned to it
or whether ballots from other precincts were used.
Finally, they contend that the county's vote-tabulation
machines were used improperly and that discrepancies exist
between the certified recount and the certified original
vote.
All this was done to cover up problems in the November vote
and ensure that no hand-recount would have to be done
around the county, the letter from Cobb and Badnarik
alleges.
Board's response
Michael Vu, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of
Elections, declined to comment on specifics of the case but
said "we will cooperate fully with the Erie County
prosecutor.''
Vu said the elections procedure "needs to be a transparent
process.''
The board's elections coordinator, Jacqui Maiden, told the
board in its Feb. 8 meeting that the recount was handled
based on a recount of a Garfield Heights Municipal Court
judge election from 1981 and that the procedures used in
November "are the same that has been used in the past.''
The procedure Maiden cited included picking 3 percent of
the precincts for a hand count, but the meeting minutes
didn't indicate whether the board picked the 3 percent at
random.
According to the complaint filed by both the candidates and
their lawyer, Richard Kerger of Toledo, the board did not
randomly select 3 percent of the county's precincts to
recount, as required by state law. Instead, the county
selected recount precincts only from among those with 550
voters or more, which eliminated 90 percent of the county's
precincts, according to the letter.
As Caner put it in his shorter e-mail: "This is similar to
randomly drawing a card out of a deck, but before doing so,
eliminating all suits but hearts.''
In addition, the candidates' letter contends that the way
the precincts were chosen seems "to be of a special sort:
those in which (U.S. Sen. John) Kerry received either his
largest or second largest number of votes in the ward. This
meant that precincts in which (President) Bush received an
unusually high number of votes could not be examined, nor
could the precincts in which the third-party candidates
received unusually high vote totals.''
The letter said there is no way this phenomenon happened at
random.
More allegations
The letter alleges that Maiden admitted in a Dec. 22
meeting that "ballots in selected precincts had been opened
without the presence of witnesses and had been sorted and
hand counted in advance of the original recount'' --
setting up a test-run to assure that the recount would
comport closely with the original count so that a full hand
count wouldn't have to be conducted.
As for the transfer-case problem, the letter alleges that
on Dec. 17, a number of precincts were found to have had
problems -- namely some ballots assigned to one precinct
were used in another, or too many or too few ballots were
used.
The letter suggested that "the (election) staff had been
assigned to clean-up the tell-tale evidence of election
irregularities within the cases.''
Kerger said Thursday that Cuyahoga County was the only
county to receive a letter like the one he referred to
Mason's office. He said generally he understands that
county boards of elections, mostly made up of volunteers,
aren't going to run perfect elections. "If we hold the
Super Bowl every four years, we wouldn't expect the
referees to be perfect,'' he said.
However, what he found in Cuyahoga County was different.
There "it seemed to be more than just a mistake,'' he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3523 or
sdyer@thebeaconjournal.com
© 2005 Beacon Journal and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.ohio.com
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