Please tell me if anyone ever explained this very troubling

[JaneEyrez]

photograph and posting on AMERICAblog.org. I thought surely by now there would have been somebody who recognized this person and could figure out example what was being done to these ballots. If I just missed it, please let me know!


"Possible evidence of voter fraud in Ohio
I just received a photo a Cincinnati poll manager took this evening, and it seems to be proof of some fishy actions with ballots in Ohio. Bottom line: Note the already-voted-with ballots in the back of the truck with the Bush-Cheney sticker in the back window. Does this prove fraud? Well, it certainly doesn't look good in a state that's already had lots of problems this election.


Click here to see the larger image.

In a nutshell, Stefan Skirtz is a poll manager for the Kerry campaign in Cincinnati. His precinct is heavily made up of minorities and students (i.e., leans Kerry). One of the duties of the poll managers, Stefan told me in a phone call minutes ago, is to follow the poll workers to election headquarters as they drop off the ballots and ballot boxes. Stefan followed the poll workers who didn't go directly to the election headquarters. Instead, they went to a local public school where workers put the ballot machines into a semi trailer, and then the poll workers handed off the sealed bags containing the ballots to someone Stefan assumed was with the county board of elections.

The first problem he noticed was that there was no sign off of the transfer of the ballots. Nothing was written down and given to the poll worker as proof that the ballots were passed off to the county employee.

What's worse, Stefan noticed the pick-up truck of the supposed county board of election - the truck the ballots for 40 precincts were loaded into - had a big Bush-Cheney 2004 sticker in the back window. Stefan did say that he followed the truck to the election headquarters, though he didn't see what transpired after the truck pulled into the election hq parking lot.

As Stefan explains it, the poll managers had such an extensive list of voters rights and regulations that they had to follow, including it being illegal to have any partisan buttons etc. in the polling place, yet the ballots for voters in over 40 precincts were put in the hands of Bush-Cheney partisans.

I don't know whether the Bush partisans did or didn't play any games with the ballots they received, but it sure doesn't look good, and I wonder whether it's even legal. And let's not forget, this is a state that was already well on its way to becoming the new Florida of GOP election fraud.

Stefan says he has 6 or 7 witnesses who also saw the sticker on the truck. I have Stefan's contact info for members of the media."

[Neoma]

1. OMG

:wow:

:cry:

[Robert Oak]

2. I wondered about this too

It's an amazing photograph.

Has anybody sent this to the media, to any of the campaigns to follow up
on this?

thanks for posting this, so many stories but this one has stuck in the back of my mind since I saw it and really we need some answers on this one.

[Disgruntled American]

3. nothing

well, Kerry said it was time for the healing process to being.

The only group really standing up, is a bunch of ralph naders and green party.

The democratic party has folded.

[TexasChick]

6. Maybe send it to Keith Obermann, Bev Harris? n/t

[barackmyworld]

4. it looks photoshopped...

the sticker is so bright and not angled, are there any clearer pics?

[high density]

13. I agree

The perspective of the sticker is wrong, and the sticker is brighter than the reflectors in the brake light assembly.

[genieroze]

24. I just took a copy

of a sticker that someone posted and I shrunk to the same size as the one on the truck. I cut copied and pasted it into the same space as the sticker on the truck and it's much brighter than that, unless they tried to shade it a bit. I could be Photoshopped or authentic, maybe this is a pic the Bush camp put out, like those faked forged CBS documents that I still think Rove had something to do with. Even if it's real it doesn't prove fraud, just bad judgement to have a partisan sticker on your truck. Man these pugs are getting blatant though.

[shelley806]

5. This was posted a long time ago and Keith Olbermann had it

on Countdown on Monday(?) It has not gone unnoticed, but it's a mystery to me! One DUer (at least) thought it had been photo oped--the signs looked too bright and obvious.




edited for typos

[TexasChick]

10. At first glance, I thought it wasn't Photoshopped. But, after reading

your post and looking at the Butt/Satan sticker on the truck's back window, it does look kind of bright and cropped. It should be a little more darker if it were real.

[shelley806]

21. I know when it was first posted, more than a few people thought it was

photoshopped, and I was surprised that KO aired it without comment other than 'This is a mystery that needs to be cleared up', or whatever he said. If he showed it on Countdown, he must have more info about the validity of the (Butt/Satan lol) stickers and the story behind it. I don't know how to do a search...and I know that it was of interest to me when I saw it here, but I was way more interested in exit polls, etc, so I doubt that I saved it. Someone will probably post the original link eventually. Let's see.

Where in Texas are you from? (I'm from Houston, lived in Dallas, and now I'm in Hell--Lubbock, for I hope not long!)

[TexasChick]

23. McKinney, TX! The heart of chimp country! Dumbya stickers up the

wazoo, if you can imagine! Do a search on google (google.com) with something like +Bush+Cheney+ballots+truck+Ohio or something like that. See what you can come up with.

[Robert Oak]

11. hmmm...to me looks like lighting glare

from street lights.

I think we should follow through.

Anybody know the origin? I remember seeing this on 11.2...
I thought on the news...

who took it, where does it come from and what have they done about it..

as well as is it a fake and so forth.

[Seattlewaguy2004]

7. It looks to me like the Bush sticker was added after the fact.

Don't flame me. I hate Bush...but the sticker is the same height straight across.

Go Kerry!

-Patrick

[shelley806]

9. Is that you Seattle wagon? Welcome to DU. eom

[JaneEyrez]

8. Even if the sticker was Photo-Shopped...

That doesn't explain what those ballots are doing in that truck, because that woman (?) doesn't look like an elections official to me. I'm awfully worried that they have had all this time to dispose of inconvient ballots, whether they be privisionals, absentees or spoiled.

[shelley806]

12. Hey, isn't that Mary Cheney? (LOL) n/t

[glugglug]

14. I think maybe SHE is photoshopped....

Something about the angle of her feet/legs doesn't look right for standing on level ground.

[shelley806]

20. tee hee! eom

[AmyCrat]

15. Photoshopped?

I looked at the photo myself inside photoshop and it's hard to tell if it was photoshopped or not.

It's deceiving because the sticker itself is rectangle, but the design has an angle to it, and is against a dark blue background (so at night, you might not see the blue).

Here's what the sticker looks like



So the angle of the sticker itself is a bit hard to tell in the photo.

Considering the guy has supposed witnesses to the sticker and is willing to talk, I'd be less apt to think it's photoshopped.

[papiamento]

16. calling BS on this

difference between real issues and silly issues


1. sticker badly photoshopped

2. if nobody who works in a polling place can have a political affiliation, there will never be another election.

3. if it's real. it's just a sticker. she'd still be a GOP even if she didn't have a sticker. a sticker is not evidence of corruption. plenty of dems work in polling places too, and carry ballots too. I'm sure you could find a few with stickers too, if you wanted to.

4. not every GOP is corrupt. not every dem is innocent. absolutes and generalizations and stereotypes are, well, silly

[m berst]

17. over a week old

This text and photo are all over the web.

Here is a thread at Daily Kos -

"I'm the one who posted the photo (none / 0)

Let me add that Stefan DID say he followed the truck to the election headquarters and it pulled into the parking lot. AT that point, he didn't see anything more. (I just added that to my blog entry at AMERICAblog.) So, at least it's not like the truck drove off to Timbuktu. It's still very creepy that Bush-Cheney partisans are driving around ballots from 40 precincts. And it's one small piece of the larger problem that appears to be Ohio this time around. I've already sent this to several friends in the media and to the DNC.

Join my gay rights email list, THE LIST: www.GayAdvocacy.com
by Aravosis on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 00:38:54 PST"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/3/3728/15173

[John Q. Citizen]

18. If Stefen Skirtz is a poll manager for the Kerry campaign,

then he knows what to do with the photo and we don't have to worry.

If it's bogus then it's some kind of set up.

Either way we don't have to do anything about it.

[Robert Oak]

19. this story still bugs me

I'd like to hear a follow up on what the campaigns said.

I'm not that great at photoshop, so I'll go with anyone who uses
it a lot and knows their stuff...

but the story is horrifying.

[John Q. Citizen]

22. Yeah, but it doesn't have the ring of truth to it.

Why not get another picture of the truck with a license plate too?

The story text has that freeper forwarded e-mail kind of ring to it.

[JaneEyrez]

25. Communication from a journalist who posted this story...

but it still doesn't explain the picture.
Read this sequence from the bottom up, because the earlier e-mail was replied to and then another went back and forth:


From: John Aravosis
Date: 11/13/04 10:52:17
To: Scope
Subject: Re: Were you aware...

Well, I can't say or do anything about who borrowed the photo online and/or what they chose to wrote about it. What I do know that is that I got the photo from the guy who took it, interviewed him at length (and I've worked as a stringer for the Economist, among others, so I know how to interview and judge a source), he has an additional 6 to 7 people who witnessed him taking the photo and who witnessed the actual sticker on the back of the truck, and I know a friend of his who vouched for his credibility. That's adds up to a real photo, period. They can talk about photoshop all they want. One thing I will NOT do is post his contact info online for the freaks to badger him - I've given his phone number to numerous media outlets who have interviewed him.




At 10:40 AM 11/13/2004 -0500, you wrote: Were you aware...

that all over the internet(s) wherever this is posted, it is accompanied by the suggestion that the photo has been Photo-Shopped and is, therefore, fraudulent. I found NOWHERE, after a very diligent search, where anybody followed up on this story and identified the person, identified the reason for the ballots being on the back of the truck, where the ballots came from, where they were going, had they been counted, NADA! So I guess I'm back to square one, I still would like to know what, if any, follow-up was done on this particular picture and story to confirm or deny that it was evidence of wrongdoing on anybody's part. Sorry to bug YOU about this, but you're one of the few links that I found to a human being who might have actual information.

Thanks, Sylvia Cope

-------Original Message-------

From: John Aravosis
Date: 11/13/04 10:36:25
To: Scope
Subject: Re: Could you please tell me...

It didn't need debunking because we had 6 or 7 witnessed to the bumper sticker and the picture taking of the bumper sticker. I interviewed the guy who took the photo, his friends, and he does numerous interviews with the mainstream media.


At 09:02 AM 11/13/2004 -0500, you wrote: Could you please tell me
if anybody ever substantiated or debunked the picture on AmericaBlog.org of the truck full of ballots?

I've been trying to run this down and so far haven't found anything except it being posting verbatim at other sites.

If it's legit, surely somebody knows this person and the circumstances. I just want to have a logical explanation.

Thanks, Sylvia

[JaneEyrez]

26. An e-mail from Stefan Skirtz...

From: Stefan Skirtz
Date: 11/13/04 12:43:42
To: Scope
Subject: Re: Are you the same Stefan Skirtz...

On 11/13/04 9:23 AM, "Scope" <[e-mail]> wrote:


who is a poll manager in Ohio? I have been trying to find out what the truth was of that photograph and posting that was put on AmericaBlog.org. If you know anything about this, please let me know. If you're not the right Stefan Skirtz, I'm sorry to have bothered you.

Thank you, Sylvia
<http://www.incredimail.com/index.asp?id=54475>


Yes, Sylvia it was me. The photo is real.

stefan

[Jersey Devil]

27. Should be fairly easy to audit this - compare voters signed in to vote

with ballots turned in. There should not be a significant difference between the total number of people who signed in to vote and total number of ballots received by the election board (whether they are counted or disqualified in this instance makes no difference). If there is a big difference then someone has some explaining to do.