Jeeze, I wonder how that happened ??!!
Looks like a Photoshop job to me. Someone seems to have removed the "1" on both the Badnarik and Bush lines.
Is this particular to this county or is this statewide? Will there be sample ballots sent out ahead of time? Is this a predominently Democrat county?
Maybe that 2 and 4 actually mean 12 and 14. Both would then line up correctly. That would make more sense than the literal reading of the ballot.
Freep the election officials:
Voter Information Hotline (216) 443-3298
General Information (216) 443-3200
Absentee Ballot Information (216) 443-3231
Fax (216) 443-6466
(216) 344-2668
Can someone in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), OH confirm this and notify the GOP/RNC/Bush offical in the area? If true, this clearly benefits Kerry.
It's a typo, not fraud. Kerry-6, disqualified-8, Petrouka-10, Bednarik-says 2 but should be 12, and Bush-says 4 but should be 14. 6-8-10-12-14. See, every other tab. So, the one next to the arrow is the right one.
It should be fixed, but I doubt there was any foul play intended. It should be brought to the attention of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and the Ohio Board of Elections. It will get fixed, I'd put money on it.
How did they decide to Put Kerry FIRST and Bush LAST? Often undecided people vote for the FIRST candidate on a list.
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/news2004/1004/102404-ohio-butterfly-ballot.htm
Now this conservative website is on the case.
What moron tries to lineup a ballot with the voting brochure ? Punch card ballots are no harder to use than a bingo card.
I live in Wood County Ohio. I voted absentee last week. On my absentee ballot, you voted for Bush/Cheney by punching out the chad at number 4, not 14. A second point of note - at least in Wood COunty, the layout of the absentee ballot is exactly like the ballot used to vote in person. In both cases (absentee or in person), you punch out the little chads on the punch card. Furthermore, when voting in person, you slide the punchcard into a slot to the right of the printed ballot and when actualy voting, you don't even see the number of the chad you're punching out. If this is the actual Cuyahoga County ballot, the potential to defraud supporters of President Bush is huge. We could see essentially all of the votes for Bush in Cuyahoga County go uncounted.
Somebody had better find out if this is the real ballot and P D Q
Any idea whether hole #4 or #14 appear elsewhere on the ballot? If not, punching #4, #14, or both should have the same interpretation.
That is appalling!
Can CABLEGUY OR anyone verify that he image posted is legit?
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/008287.php
UPDATE: We've gotten quite a bit of mail about this. The original source of the photo is a site called Electoral-Vote.com. A reader forwarded it to us.
One reader says that the directions on the ballot make it even more confusing. Mike Wise, however, thinks the confusion is misplaced:
The candidate/issues info booklet (shown on the left in your picture) is shipped completely separately from the punchcard ballot shown on the right. They do not arrive as shown on your website or attached in any way, and I can't fathom why anyone would line the ballot and the booklet up the way it is shown in order to vote. The instructions given are to punch out the right NUMBER, not try to line them up. Given how much the numbering jumps around all over the ballot, it would be a huge hassle to try to line it up like that. It _is_ confusing the way you show it, but I can't think why anyone would set it up like that to vote...
Posted by Hindrocket at 12:28 PM | TrackBack (9)
This was on before and I noted that the Cleveland Plain Dealer had an aricle with someone from the Board of Elections. They said that the arrows were a problem but that any one who thinks they may have voted wrong can get another ballot. Their first ballot would then be cancelled. They gave the phone number to call.
I couldn't find the absentee ballot sample at the Board of Election's website. But the sample of the regular ballot has no arrows or numbers and the candidates are listed in a different order.
It would help if we knew which city, ward, and precinct this ballot is for. Each is different. I conducted a random sampling of ballots on the Cuyahoga County web site and found that most had Bush/Cheney listed first. I did find one ballot that matched this one: for Cleveland, Ward 4, Precinct F (4-F). The ballot shown on the website did not have the numbers and arrows on it.
Having worked with this type of voting system before, I can say that you can't tell whether fraud has been attempted just by looking at the sample ballot. Each candidate's position is determined before the ballots are printed up and assigned in the software that drives the card counters. In order for position 4 to be counted as a Bush/Cheney vote, position 4 would have to have been assigned within the software AND the chad punched out on the card.
As far as I can tell just by the graphic provided, it appears to me that position 14 has been assigned Bush/Cheney and would line up with the arrow and the hole once the punch card was inserted into the voting table. However, as we do not know the origin of the graphic provided, we cannot determine how original/authentic it is. Since the samples provided on the website are in PDF format AND unprotected (no Acrobat security turned on), they are easy to capture and manipulate on a computer. It took me less than a minute to capture the same area on the ballot and paste it in Photoshop. From there, it is a no brainer to add whatever you want to it, or to erase something that is there and replace it with something else.
This graphic proves nothing by itself.
Be this a valid photo, or not, if one is too stupid to read AND comprehend the instructions that clearly tell you to punch by the number, then you have no business voting in the first place.l
Not only this ballot is confusing but I am sure you have heard of how different states handle voting differently, i.e., some are using computer-based voting machines while others are using the lever-type machines - point being, there is even no consistency across the country as to how voting will be conducted.