Convictions handed down over 2004 Presidential Election

mindseye

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Source: AP, via The Guardian.

Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.
In order to avoid a recount and the type of scrutiny of the ballotting methods used in the state which tipped the 2004 US Presidential Election to George W. Bush instead of John Kerry, the elections coordinator of Cuyahoga County, and her assistant manipulated the ballots prior to final certification of the vote totals, and were convicted yesterday of felony misconduct by an elections employee (along with an associated misdemeanor charge).

I'm too heartsick to comment.
 

D_Masteur Baetes

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So this does not turn into anothe "Bush stole the election rant", you might also want to read this item from a Liberal website;

"Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter did not claim the workers’ actions affected the outcome of the election — Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county’s recount."


True Blue Liberal » Election Staff Convicted in Recount Rig
 

mindseye

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That "item" was, in fact, part of the article that I cited. And in context, you'd find out that the 23-vote difference was reflected in a tiny sample of the ballots; the fraud was in manipulating that sample in order to avoid a full recount, which may have revealed more votes.
 

rawbone8

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Source: AP, via The Guardian.

In order to avoid a recount and the type of scrutiny of the ballotting methods used in the state which tipped the 2004 US Presidential Election to George W. Bush instead of John Kerry, the elections coordinator of Cuyahoga County, and her assistant manipulated the ballots prior to final certification of the vote totals, and were convicted yesterday of felony misconduct by an elections employee (along with an associated misdemeanor charge).

I'm too heartsick to comment.

From what I've read they were supposed to use randomly chosen selections of ballots for a vote count check. If the randomly chosen ballots fell within accepted ratios that jived with the overall results, then they could rely on a machine count to check. The machine count is much faster and cheaper than a laborious manual recount which would mean paying workers and would take weeks, adding up to a significant cost.

By preselected ballots that would present the "desired" ratios, they would be able to avoid the hand count.

Dirty deeds with a nefarious purpose (covering up election fraud)?
Or
Dodgy methods (that were established practice) to save public money?
 

mindseye

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...or (what I suspect may be the case), dodgy methods so they could finish up before Christmas.
 

swordfishME

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You are probably right. Self interest and laziness trumps saving public money.

Lets just hpe it was slef interest and laziness and not an attempt to prevent us from being done with Senor Idiomo on January 20th, 2005. I however do agree that there are some big flaws with our vote counting mecanisms that need to be addressed.
 

mindseye

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Lets just hpe it was slef interest and laziness and not an attempt to prevent us from being done with Senor Idiomo on January 20th, 2005. I however do agree that there are some big flaws with our vote counting mecanisms that need to be addressed.

See, for my part, I think the two 'scapegoats' who were convicted this week were probably acting out of laziness; but in doing so, they prevented the type of recount that may (or, granted, may not) have uncovered more irregularities. But through their actions, they usurped our right to find out.