2004 United States election voting controversies

After the 2004 United States presidential election, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote (and no one else), and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the presidential election, in which the incumbent, Republican President George W. Bush, defeated the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. There was generally less attention paid to the Senate and House elections and to various state races, but some of them were also questioned.

Kerry himself conceded the presidential election to Bush on November 3. Some of his supporters criticized him for doing so, arguing that Bush's apparent win in Ohio was so narrow that it might be reversed if improprieties were corrected and the still-uncounted provisional ballots were largely in Kerry's favor. A subsequent partial recount in Ohio did not significantly reduce Bush's victory margin there. (Some of the alleged improprieties in the election could not be addressed by a recount.) There is an ongoing debate about possible changes for future elections.

Among the issues raised in 2004 were:

• Obstacles to voter registration.
• Improper purges of voter lists.
• Deliberate voter suppression.
• Practical impediments to voting, such as excessively long lines.
• Accuracy and reliability of voting machines, and potential for undetected interference in their operations ("hacking"), including those employing DRE voting machines, optical scan voting systems, and punch card voting systems.
• Other inaccuracies in the official count of votes cast on Election Day, whether through carelessness or deliberate tampering.
• Problems with absentee ballots and provisional ballots.

Specific issues concerning the voting process

Voter registration

Facilitating voter registration was the main goal of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. States were required to make registration more widely available, notably through driver's license agencies (hence the nickname "Motor Voter Act"). In 2004, however, there were incidents in several states in which people who had submitted registration forms through a motor vehicle agency were not found on the voter rolls on Election Day.

There were also complaints about the rejection of registrations by government agencies. College students encountered difficulties in registering where they attended school. Some officials rejected voter registration forms on grounds that were contested, such as a failure to use paper of a particular weight (Ohio) or a failure to check a box on the form (Florida).

Aside from such official actions, there were disputes about other voter registration activities. In Nevada and Oregon, a company hired by the Republican National Committee solicited voter registration forms, but was accused of filing only the Republicans’ forms and shredding those completed by Democrats. A nonprofit organization, ACORN, was accused of submitting false voter registration forms and of carelessly or deliberately failing to submit some valid ones that it had received.

Purges of voter lists

State efforts to purge voter rolls have led to disputes, notably in Florida. Before the 2000 election, Florida officials purged 57,700 registered voters on the grounds that they were convicted felons (and therefore ineligible to vote under Florida law). Many of those whose names were purged were "false positives" (not actually felons). (See Florida Central Voter File.) A post-election lawsuit brought by the NAACP, the People for the American Way Foundation, and other organizations resulted in a settlement in 2002 in which the state agreed to restore eligible voters to the rolls and take other steps to improve election procedures.

The issue returned to prominence in 2004 when Florida announced another planned purge, again based on a list of felons. The state government initially attempted to keep the list secret. When a court ordered its release, it was found to contain mostly Democrats and a disproportionate number of racial minorities. Faced with media documentation that the list included thousands of errors, the state abandoned the attempt to use it. Some of the voters improperly purged in 2000 had not been restored as of May 2004.

Voter suppression

The term "voter suppression" is used to describe methods of discouraging or impeding people from voting. The government agency or private entity doing so believes that the would-be voters thus turned away would have been more likely to vote for an opponent. For example, Representative Dennis Kucinich described voter suppression in his state, Ohio:

Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registration through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout. Phone calls to voters giving them erroneous polling information were also common.

John Pappageorge, a Republican state legislator in Michigan said in the summer of 2004, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."

Practical impediments

In every election, some voters encounter practical impediments to voting, such as long lines at the polling place. In 2004, however, the issue received increased attention. In many places, some voters had to wait several hours to vote. Among the factors thought to be at work were: the general increase in voter turnout; a particular increase in first-time voters whose processing required more time; and confusion about the providing of provisional ballots, which many states had never used before.

In addition, some of the instances may have been caused, in whole or in part, by a form of voter suppression. Many previous elections have seen charges that a governing party allocated more voting machines or otherwise facilitated voting in areas where it was strong, while doing the opposite in the opposing party’s bastions. That issue arose again in 2004. There were also allegations of delays caused by such tactics as frequent challenges of voters, or even police roadblocks set up to impede access to certain polling places.

Voting machines

Further information: [[:Analysis of electronic voting]]

Before 2004, the increasing use of electronic voting machines had raised several issues:

• Software. Without proper testing and certification, critics believe electronic voting machines could produce an incorrect report due to malfunction or deliberate manipulation.
• Recounts. Voting machine recounts include auditing of hardware, software and the comparison of multiple vote records.
• Partisan ties. Democrats noted the Republican or conservative ties of several leading executives in the companies providing the machines.

In September 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election process while citing concerns about security and reliability raised by numerous groups, and detailing specific problems that have occurred.

Some argue there is evidence the presidential election was stolen for Bush, citing sworn statements and affidavits of numerous voters supporting the fact that vote flipping did occur, examples of large-scale voter disenfranchisement and "statistical impossibilities," including the Ohio exit poll disparity.

Exit polling

The 2004 election brought new attention to the issue of exit polls, which are generally considered more reliable than pre-election opinion polls. Many pointed to widespread discrepancies between exit polls conducted during Election Day and the officially reported results. They pointed out that the official results were more favorable to Bush than were the polls, and that these discrepancies were more likely to arise in swing states. They argue that the exit polls showing a Kerry victory were probably correct and that the official totals from the machines were wrong. Expert opinion was divided concerning what inferences should be drawn from the cited discrepancies.

Mitofsky International, the company responsible for exit polling for the National Election Pool and its member news organizations, released a report detailing the 2004 election's exit polling. At issue were the early release of some poll information, issues regarding correcting exit poll data using actual voter totals, and differences between exit polls and official results.

The NEP report stated that "the size of the average exit poll error ... was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which we have data." It concluded that these discrepancies between the exit polls and the official results were "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters". Polling expert John Zogby later called this explanation "preposterous".

A study performed by the Caltech / MIT Voting Technology Project concluded that "there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electronic voting machines were used to steal the 2004 election for President Bush." This study was criticized for using data that had been corrected to match the official count, and thus "essentially analyzing rounding error". On December 5, 2004 Charles Stewart III of MIT released a revised report which, he said, used pre-corrected data.

On December 7, 2004, Warren Mitofsky, who had overseen the exit polling, stated that the pre-corrected data were proprietary and would not be released.

One paper concluded that discrepancies in the exit polls were proof of a corrupted election, though others alleged this paper was unscientific.

Other inaccuracies on Election Day

In the 2000 election, especially in the disputed recounts in Florida, there were issues concerning the ambiguities and uncertainties that arose from punch-card ballots, such as the hanging chads (incompletely punched holes). In 2004, the punch-card ballots were still widely used in some states. For example, more than 90,000 votes cast in Ohio were discounted, many because of hanging chads. [2]

Provisional and absentee ballots

Provisional ballots are for would-be voters who assert that they are registered but whose names cannot be found in the list available at the polling place. The voter completes a written ballot, which is placed in a sealed envelope. The ballot is opened and counted only if the voter is subsequently found to be registered.

In 2004, there was contention over the standards for determining whether to count provisional ballots. In several states, officials said that they would not count provisional ballots, even those from properly registered voters, that were submitted at the wrong precinct. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, although the original procedure had stated that the voter was not required to provide a date of birth, a new rule issued a week after the election called for rejecting any provisional ballot that lacked a date of birth. [3]

Absentee ballots were also an issue. There were reports of absentee ballots being mailed out too late for most voters to complete and return them in time. (In some instances, officials argued that last-minute litigation over Ralph Nader’s ballot status or other issues had prevented them from finalizing the absentee ballots as early as they wanted to.) In Broward County, Florida, some 58,000 absentee ballots were delivered to the Postal Service to be mailed to voters, according to county election officials, but the Postal Service said it had never received them. In one widely reported instance, 5 Princeton University students (Theo Ellis, Luke Goodwin, Kelsey Johnson, Alison Hess, and Katharine Brandes) drove 40 continuous hours from New Jersey to Florida and back in order to vote. Hess, who lived in Democratic-stronghold Boca Raton, had never received the absentee ballot she applied for months in advance. The students rallied behind their friend, leaving at 11PM the night before the Presidential election to take her to vote in person in Florida. Numerous student groups used the students as an example to encourage other youths to exercise their right to vote; one group, the Princeton Democrats, raised money to pay for the 5 students' gas expense.

Racial discrimination and other bias

Some of the issues described above have created problems for voters generally. Others, however, by accident or (it is charged) by design, have disproportionately affected racial minorities. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African Americans, who were only 11 percent of the voters. People for the American Way and the NAACP catalogued a number of voting problems with discriminatory impacts through early 2004 in this report, with a subsequent update.

The 2004 election continued the well-established trend that African Americans were much more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. As a result, a disproportionate reduction in the African-American vote would tend to hurt the Democrats. Beyond that factor, many Democrats alleged that other election-related problems affected their supporters more heavily. Some argued that, if the election had been conducted without improprieties, Kerry would have won the presidency. According to Democratic attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004 -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes. ... In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots. And that doesn’t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

Journalist Greg Palast came to the same conclusion.

Recounts

Ralph Nader requested a recount of 11 wards in New Hampshire where vote totals for Bush were 5% - 15% higher then predicted by exit polls. The Nader campaign reports:

In the eleven wards recounted, only very minor discrepancies were found between the optical scan machine counts of the ballots and the recount. The discrepancies are similar to those found when hand-counted ballots are recounted.

In Ohio, two minor-party candidates, Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) and David Cobb (Green, though not on the ballot in Ohio) cooperated in requesting a recount.

According to Ohio recount rules, 3% of a county's votes are tallied by hand, and typically one or more whole precincts are selected and combined to get the 3% sample. The 3% must be randomly selected, and all hand counts are to be performed in public (with observers). After the hand count, the sample is fed into the tabulator. If there is no discrepancy, the remaining ballots can be counted by the machine. Otherwise, a hand recount must be done for the whole county.

The Cobb campaign claimed that the precincts were not randomly selected and the ballots were pre-sorted. They suggested that this indicates that precincts were selected that would match the machine count, in order to prevent a county-wide hand count, i.e. that it was "staged". Two poll workers were convicted of preselecting ballots for the recounts

Around the country there were also recounts of races for state and local office. Most of them reflected simply the closeness of the official tally, but some also raised issues of election irregularities. These included the elections for:

• Governor of Washington, between Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire. Issues raised included the mailing of absentee ballots, the counting of provisional and absentee ballots, correction of improper marks on optically scanned ballots, and alleged tampering with electronic voting machines. The first tally and the first recount gave the election to Republican Dino Rossi. However, after two statewide recounts, Gregoire, the Democrat, had a narrow lead of 129 votes out of 2.8 million cast. A Republican lawsuit seeking to overturn the result and force a re-vote was rejected by the court, after which Rossi conceded the election. See Washington gubernatorial election, 2004.
• North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, between Britt Cobb and Steve Troxler. The number of votes lost due to a voting machine malfunction in Carteret County (over 4,000) exceed the reported margin of about 2,000. A new election has been called by state election supervisors.
• Governor of Puerto Rico, between Anibal Acevedo Vilá and Pedro Rosselló. Nearly 30,000 ballots are in dispute in this race, where the two candidates are separated by just under 4,000 votes.

See also Moss v. Bush

External links

• "Vote Watch 2004" - information and links about many incidents (pro-Kerry viewpoint)
• "Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff" - investigation into irregularities reported in the Ohio presidential election by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) (page down)
• [4] Response by Kenneth Blackwell to accusations of Ohio misconduct
• Comments on problems with the 2004 election (washingtonpost.com)
• Mark Hertsgaard, Mother Jones, Recounting Ohio (November/December 2005)
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Rolling Stone, Was the 2004 Election Stolen? (June 1, 2006)
• Farhad Manjoo, Salon, Was the 2004 Election Stolen? No. -- Critique of Robert F. Keennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone Article (June 3, 2006)