Did Your Vote Count?

Thanks to Keith Olbermann at MSNBC for bringing these voting stories to light. I sat with my jaw wide open on Monday night as the revelations of voting irregularites started to unwind. While I am a Kerry supporter, this is not about changing our election reults, it IS about making our democracy work. If you notice, about 3 entries down in my blog, I did report there would be issues for voters in Ohio. Unfortunately, the warnings came true.

Here is part one of three broadcasts Keith has done. He has some wonderful facts posted in his blog, I encourage you to read and write MSNBC for continued coverage on the stories that are emerging.

The craziest story comes to us from Warren, Oh. Citing "Homeland Security" threats - no one was able to enter the building, so it didn't include an approved ballot-count watcher. Hmmmmmmm, strange indeed!

As of today, MoveOn.Org is finally getting involved. If you want to see our democracy work, and actually count our votes, please sign the petition.

Last, but not least BlackBoxVoting.org is a non-partisan group investigating our new voting technologies - what worked and our vulnerabilities.

From David Shuster, MSNBC:
As promised, our examination of the vote in Ohio and Florida continues. At this point, I've seen enough to conclude that the congressman demanding a GAO (Government Accountability Office) investigation is not nuts... at least not on this issue.

Here's what we've established so far:

1. In Franklin County, Ohio, an electronic voting machine reported an extra 3,893 votes for President Bush. Local officials caught the error. But as my colleage David Corn of "The Nation" has reported, Peggy Howell, one of the key officials, "doesn't know" why the mistake occurred. That, by itself, is a strong argument for the GAO to step in.

2. We still "don't know" why the officials in charge of voting at Kenyon college in Ohio equipped the site with only two voting machines. No explanation has been offered. Students who waited in line for nine hours believe it was an effort to disenfranchise easily identifiable democrats.

Cuyahoga County, Ohio has changed its explanation as to how some precincts could have reported more votes cast than the total number of registered voters. The county says it added absentee ballots to the "reporting" not the "counting." Hmmm. Hello, GAO?

The question is, are these anomalies or part of a pattern to steal the election? Democratic strategist Donna Brazile says, "there is no overwhelming reason to cast doubt on the outcome of this election." Why? Consider Florida.

Regarding the Florida counties that went strongly for Bush, despite more registered Democrats than registered Republicans: In addition to the numbers listed on an earlier blog, I checked previous presidential elections... and those Dixiecrat counties have been trending Republican for 12 year. Lafayette County, which has 3,570 registered Democrats and 570 registered Republicans went strongly for President Bush this year as well as four years ago. It also went for Bob Dole over Clinton in '96, and for George H.W. Bush over Clinton in '92. Other Dixiecrat counties follow the same trend. The story is the same across the state.

We will continue to probe and keep an open mind... and we are not finished crunching numbers. But here are two nuggets we learned today about those infamous exit polls that gave Kerry an edge over the President in Ohio and in Florida...

The exit pollsters asked voters to answer a questionnaire that had not one or two questions... but 30. So most people in a hurry were not going to stick around. (And you can imagine the challenge for somebody with "energetic" toddlers or little children.) This could overstate the turnout of "single" voters (a group that broke towards Kerry) and understate "married with children voters" (a group that broke towards President Bush.)

The exit pollsters were clearly identifiable, through logos plastered on their clipboards and logos on the questionnaire, as representing a consortium of the major broadcast news organizations: (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and CNN.) The logos of the big three, NBC, CBS, and ABC are far more well known than the logo for Fox. My point is that voters who are suspicious of the major broadcast networks (whether those suspicions are justified or not) usually aren't interested in helping us do anything. Who are these voters? They tend to be Evangelical Christians and other conservatives. And if these voters are shying away from the network pollsters, the exit numbers are going to underestimate the president's support.

In any case, we still have a lot of unanswered questions... and I know many of you do as well. Can we agree that the non-partisan GAO is wise to get involved?

DShuster@MSNBC.com