Unrequested 'Report' Dismisses, Ignores Evidence of Discrimination, Disenfranchisement!
DoJ Report Also Reveals More than 100,000 Voters NEWLY 'Purged' from Rolls in One Ohio County Alone!
By Brad Friedman on 7/1/2005, 3:57pm PT  

There is almost no other way to put this, but we are simply floored by the report just released by the Department of Justice concerning the Franklin County, OH elections.

If there ever was a report which could be called a whitewash, this would be the very dictionary definition --- with the emphasis on WHITE.

The DoJ four-page report, based on dodgy figures, uninvestigated charges and undocumented information and details, simply concludes that "Franklin County assigned voting machines in a non-discriminatory manner", that "no violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act" was found and they "are thus closing our file."

In truth, a detailed analysis of the flaws in this report, and an unwaivering condemnation of this reprehensible piece of "official documentation" is needed. But as folks are disappearing for the Holiday Weekend, we're afraid any analysis we took the time to compile right now would likely get lost in the holiday news-hole. So, for the moment, we're gonna dump these documents here and leave the detailed analysis and shouts of outrage and condemnation to BRAD BLOG readers. If we can follow up a bit more after the holiday, we will.

Essentially, John Conyers' office requested a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice investigation back in January on a number of very troubling matters related to Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election on behalf of the minority members of the Judiciary Committee. (Letter requesting a Special Prosecutor from the DoJ is here [PDF]. Coverage of it by RAW STORY is here, and BRAD BLOG's own reporting at the time, which led to one of the complaints in the letter to the DoJ, is here.)

Amongst the items for which Conyers' January 14, 2005 had requested an investigation at the time --- according to the response to the report Conyers sent on Wednesday --- were "serious charges concerning Voter Intimidation and Misinformation; Improper Purging and other Misconduct; Caging of New Minority Voters; Misuse of HAVA Funds; Tampering of Voting Machinery and Records; Perjury by a County Board of Election Official; and the Misuse of the Great Seal of the United States on Secretary of State Blackwell's Personal Campaign Materials."

While no "substantive response to the many instances of voting irregularities and civil rights violations in the state of Ohio" about which Conyers' submitted evidence has been forthcoming by the DoJ since that January letter, apparently someone within the DoJ took it upon themselves to conduct --- and as we've said WHITEWASH --- an investigation concerning what happened in just one county in Ohio.

The DoJ's resulting four-page report, conducted by "The Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division" and sent to Franklin County officials on Wednesday, is a masterwork of obfuscation, disinformation, misinformation, smoke and mirrors and out and out lies. And remember, it comes directly from your Department of Justice.

As we've said, a more detailed point-by-point analysis of the outrage is called for. But for now, we feel it's important to get the information out as is so folks can see with their own eyes what has "flabbergasted" Conyers' as according to the response he sent in reply to the DoJ yesterday.

There is, however, at least one paragraph which jumped out at us, but that Conyers' reply does not deal with directly (understandably, frankly, since there is so much to be "flabbergasted" about in this DoJ report!). We feel this one is important to point out as we find it particularly disconcerting for what the future may hold in Ohio [emphasis added]:

A major complicating factor in the appropriate allocation of voting machines was the artificially inflated voter registration rolls in the county. The 845,720 registered voters in 2004 actually exceeded the 2000 total voting age population of Franklin County (800,657) by 45,063 persons. This unsettling disparity resulted from the loss, during preparation for computer system changes in anticipation of the year 2000, of voter history data necessary for purging the voter rolls of ineligible voters as required by the National Voter Registration Act. The County chose to start fresh with new voter histories, with the result that there had been no voter purge since 1999. The County resumed regular purging of its voter list only after the 2004 election, and on June 20, 2005 removed approximately 114,000 ineligible individuals from its voter registration list. The 2005 purge brings the voter registration total well below the 2000 voting age population in the county.

Yes, you read that right. Franklin County's "bi-partisan" Board of Election has just now "purged" 114,000 voters from the rolls! Tee-ing things up nicely, it would seem, for many more thousands of voters to find themselves suddenly ineligible to vote when they show up at the polling place in 2006!

Over one hundred thousand voters scrubbed from the voting rolls in just one Ohio County alone by their presumably "bi-partisan" BoE. That, while we have learned over the past several months how these Ohio BoE's are certainly not "bi-partisan" as Blackwell and their other defenders continue to maintain since a) There are "Democrats" on these boards who are specifically plants, in other words, "Democrats" in name only and b) All BoE members serve at the partisan pleasure of the distinctly partisan Secretary of State and Bush/Cheney Co-Chair, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who has routinely threatened BoE members with dismissal if and when they refuse to follow his personal partisan edicts.

But that's just one of the outrages. We'll let Conyers' handle a few more. Here is his response to the DoJ report first, followed by the complete report itself by John Tanner, the Chief of the DoJ's Voting Section. Prepare to be appalled...

June 30, 2005

The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Attorney General of the United States
U. S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

I today learned that your office has conducted an investigation into the recent presidential election in Franklin County, Ohio, and essentially exonerated the misallocation of machines in that County. To say the least, I am flabbergasted that your office could reach such a casual conclusion without addressing the most serious charges of misallocation of votes in the County. I am also concerned that to this date I have yet to receive any substantive response to the many instances of voting irregularities and civil rights violations in the state of Ohio that I forwarded to your office on January 14, 2005.

With regard to your review of the allocation of voting machines in Franklin County, at the outset, you seem to take comfort from the fact that the allocation was approved by a bipartisan board of elections. The reality is misconduct and negligence should never be acceptable, whether it is bipartisan, partisan, or non-partisan. You also ignore the fact that in Ohio, members of the Boards are appointed by the Secretary of State --- J. Kenneth Blackwell --- who is distinctly partisan, and headed up by the Bush-Cheney election effort in Ohio.

More specifically, and with all due respect, your office seems to "miss the forest for the trees" in their analysis. In four pages of somewhat convoluted logic, the Civil Rights Division tends to focus on specific and largely irrelevant details regarding the black and white voting tendencies while missing the main point that tens of thousands of individuals were effectively denied their right to vote in the critical state in the entire election. Nowhere in your analysis did you bother to address any of the following:

  • A New York Times investigation revealed that Franklin County election officials reduced the number of electronic voting machines assigned to downtown precincts and added them to the suburbs. "They used a formula based not on the number of registered voters, but on past turnout in each precinct and on the number of so-called active voters ... a smaller universe. ... In the Columbus area, the result was that suburban precincts that supported Mr. Bush tended to have more machines per registered voter than center city precincts that supported Mr. Kerry."
  • The Washington Post also found that Franklin County election officials decided to make do with 2,866 machines, even though their analysis showed that the county needed 5,000 machines.
  • The Franklin County Board of Elections reported 81 voting machines were never placed on election day, and Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted that another 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day. However, a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day, while Franklin County's records reveal that they had 2,866 "machines available" on election day. This would mean that the even larger number of at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day. Matt Damschroder, misinformed a federal court on Election Day when he testified that the county had no additional voting machines - in response to a Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought by the state Democratic Party that minority precincts were intentionally deprived of machines.
  • After the election, the Washington Post also learned that in Franklin County, "27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush." At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry. The Washington Post also found that in Columbus this misallocation of machines reduced the number of voters by up to 15,000 votes. In other words, the low number of machines created the low number of voters --- not the other way around.

Moreover, hidden in your office's somewhat cursory analysis is an admission that the central allegation, that African-Americans were shortchanged voting machines, is true as the Department itself concedes that "the Board tended to allocate fewer machines to the 54 predominately black precincts per registered voter." I also must disagree with your office's dismissal of the common sense notion that election officials should have anticipated they needed more machines. This was, after all, one of the most hotly contested elections in recent history where voter interest was consistently remarkably high in public opinion polls. The Department concedes that it was well known that there were more first-time registrants in African-American precincts, but dismisses that this should have resulted in more machines in those areas, not less. Also, without explanation, the Department simply accepts that more African-American voters were forced to cast provisional ballots than white voters.

On a broader level, I am concerned that you chose to selectively investigate discrimination charges in the single county of Franklin, while more than 5 months after I submitted a detailed letter itemizing apparent wrongdoing throughout Ohio to the Department, I have yet to receive a single substantive response. This really causes me to wonder why your office is choosing to engage in and publicize inquiries which support the Administration, while ignoring --- or at least delaying, review of --- other potentially more embarrassing requests. The attached letter of January 14 details several serious charges concerning Voter Intimidation and Misinformation; Improper Purging and other Misconduct; Caging of New Minority Voters; Misuse of HAVA Funds; Tampering of Voting Machinery and Records; Perjury by a County Board of Election Official; and the Misuse of the Great Seal of the United States on Secretary of State Blackwell's Personal Campaign Materials. I believe any credible review of the Ohio election warrants examination of these issues, and a written response as well.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Minority Member

Enclosure

cc:
The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
The Honorable William E. Moschella

And here is the original report from the Department of Justice's "Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division" to which Conyers' was replying as transcribed by The BRAD BLOG from a faxed version of the report:

Judiciary Committee
Civil Rights Division
Voting Section --- NWB
930 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20530

June 29, 2005

Nick A. Soulas, Jr.
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney
Civil Division
Franklin County
373 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Mr. Soulas:

The Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division recently conducted an investigation into the November 2, 2004 general election in Franklin County, prompted by allegations that Franklin County systematically assigned fewer voting machines in polling places serving predominantly black communities as compared to its assignment of machines in predominantly white communities. As set forth below, the evidence our investigation has revealed establishes that Franklin County assigned voting machines in a non-discriminatory manner. Accordingly, there was no violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1973, and we are thus closing our file.

We note at the outset that elections in Franklin County, as elsewhere in Ohio, are run by a six-member Board of Elections, three of whose members are representatives of each major political party. In Franklin County, the members of the two parties appear to work well together and share a common goal of running fair elections. The structural bi-partisanship of the Board extends to active cooperation in decisions on election issues, and that spirit of cooperation also has been extended to our investigation. We very much appreciate the readiness and openness with which the Board has greeted and filled our requests for records and other information.

It is clear that there were long lines at polling places across Franklin County, and it was not uncommon for voters to have to wait three or more hours to cast their ballots. This was especially true within the City of Columbus, where the ballot was exceptionally long. But the long lines were attributable not to the allocation of machines, but to the lack of sufficient machines to serve a dramatically enlarged electorate under any allocation. Voters came to the polls in record numbers last November. Within Franklin County, the number of registered voters rose from 681,949 for the 2000 general election to 845,720 for the 2004 general election, and increase of 24%. Voter turnout rose even more sharply, from 417,800 in 2000 to 535,575 in 2004, an increase of over 28%. In fact, Ohio as a whole had one of the largest increases in turnout in the nation from the 2000 election. To ensure that this type of situation does not occur again, the Board has determined on its own initiative to increase the number of voting machines from 2,904 to 5,000 for the 2006 election.

A major complicating factor in the appropriate allocation of voting machines was the artificially inflated voter registration rolls in the county. The 845, 720 registered voters in 2004 actually exceeded the 2000 total voting age population of Franklin County (800,657) by 45,063 persons. This unsettling disparity resulted from the loss, during preparation for computer system changes in anticipation of the year 2000, of voter history data necessary for purging the voter rolls of ineligible voters as required by the National Voter Registration Act. The County chose to start fresh with new voter histories, with the result that there had been no voter purge since 1999. The County resumed regular purging of its voter list only after the 2004 election, and on June 20, 2005 removed approximately 114,000 ineligible individuals from its voter registration list. The 2005 purge brings the voter registration total well below the 2000 voting age population in the county.

In any event, the Board used the inflated voter rolls in the Fall of 2004 as one factor in its allocation of voting machines, and it also used past voter turnout as another factor. Of course, any allocation --- no matter how bipartisan --- was inevitably going to be inelegant and imprecise given that the Board had to make allocation decisions well before the election and was constrained by the number of voting machines available (2,904), the number of precincts (788), and the Ohio practice of having at least two machines in each precinct so that voting can continue if one machine breaks down. As Elections Director Damschroder acknowledged, the process involved "some math and some art."

With respect to the purported racial disparities in machine allocations, the reality is that while there tended to be more registered voters (based on the inflated rolls) per machine in predominantly black precincts than white precincts, the allocation of voting machines actually favored black voters because more white voters were voting on each voting machine than black voters. To understand how this came to be, it is important to note the voter turnout in Franklin County, as in much of the United States, varies significantly by race. Within the 392 precincts whose 2000 population was over 95 percent white in voting age population, voter turnout was 60.1% of total voter registration in 2000, and 68.1% in 2004. The 54 precincts over 66.6% black in voting age population had turnout of 51% in 2000 and 59.5% in 2004. Within the 12 most heavily white precincts, voter turnout was 78.9%. In the 12 most heavily black precincts, turnout was 61.8%.

In considering voter turnout, the Board tended to allocate fewer machines to the 54 predominantly black precincts per registered voter because of the long history of lower black turnout. But while there were fewer voting machines in black precincts than in white precincts based on registration, the disparity was reversed when compared to actual voter turnout in the 2004 election. In fact, voting machines in the white precincts were busier than the machines in the black precincts, and black persons who went to the polls were not at a disadvantage due to the number of machines. To the contrary, the allocation of voting machines actually favored black voters because more white voters were voting on each voting machine than black voters. (Specifically, white precincts averaged 172 voters per machine, while black precincts averaged 159 voters per machine.) The disadvantage for white voters (less than 10%) was relatively minor, and not enough to violate the Voting Rights Act. Nevertheless, we note that but for the decision of the Board to adjust for voter turnout ahead of time, the disparities would have been much greater.

Our investigation further revealed that the predominantly black polling places stayed open later than the predominantly white precincts in order to serve those voters who were in line at the normal 7:30 p.m. poll closing time. Polls in Ohio normally are open for 13 hours, from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. Within the City of Columbus, where lines were longest, the 25 most heavily black precincts (averaging over 89% black voting age population) stayed open one hour and 15 minutes longer than the polls in the 25 most heavily white precincts (averaging over 99% white voting age population). To be sure, data are not available to determine the flow of voters through polling places, so it is not possible to establish from these figures whether voters in the black sites waited longer than voters in the white sites.

Allowing for problems or incidents in individual precincts (one white precinct was open for less than the 13 hours prescribed by state law), the principal cause of the difference appears to be the tendency in Franklin County for white voters to cast ballots in the morning (i.e., before work), and for black voters to cast ballots in the afternoon (i.e., after work). We have established this tendency trough local contacts and through both political parties, and it accords with our considerable experience in other parts of the United States. Morning voters may wait in line several hours, as happened in white precincts, without keeping the polls open after 7:30 am; this is not the case, however, at sites where voters arrive after 5:30 p.m.

We have examined other possible factors related to the delay. The predominantly black precincts had larger numbers of newly registered, first-time voters --- 17.6% of voters in the 50 most heavily black precincts compared to 7% in the 50 most heavily white precincts. However, only 45.1% of newly registered voters in black precincts actually went to the polls, compared to 84.1% in the white precincts. There also were proportionally slightly more provisional ballots cast in black precincts (3.5% of all ballots) than in white precincts (2.2% of all ballots). The system for casting provisional ballots in Franklin County required the ballot to be cast on the machine, rather than on a separate paper ballot. As Mr. Damschroder pointed out, this was especially awkward and time-consuming in Columbus, where the ballot itself was cumbersome. Yet it does not appear that these factors were significant in terms of overall voting time.

The circumstances of the November 2 election clearly identify areas for improvement, and the Board has taken the principal step in its decision to increase the number of voting machines from 2,904 to 5,000. We commend the County for its outreach program to familiarize voters with voting machines, a program that will be expanded significantly as new voting devices are purchased. Such outreach will minimize delays in voting in future election, as will the Board's agreement to attempt to identify precincts with voters who may require additional time in voting due to physical, education or language barriers.

Again, thank you for the ready cooperation that both the Board and you personally extended to us during our investigation. We are equally ready to provide any assistance we can in identifying and addressing potential problems and to help you fulfill your goal of better serving the voters of Franklin County.

Sincerely,

John Tanner
Chief
Voting Section

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Article Categories: Election Irregularities, Election 2004, Ohio, John Conyers, Dept. of Justice, Vote Caging/Intimidation/Suppression, John Tanner