Jacobs, a self described anthropologist and archeologist, analyzed the ballots in predominantly Democratic Cuyahoga county and suggests that the ballots were purposely designed so that errors that voters might make by voting in the wrong precinct resulted in extra votes for Bush. Jacobs concludes that these errors resulted in a 3.35% reduction in Kerry’s vote count and a corresponding 3.35% increase in Bush’s tally, a 6.7% swing that if true, would have cost Kerry Ohio and the Presidency.

To those not familiar with voting in Ohio, the above idea of getting a ballot for one precinct and casting it in another may not sound plausible, but as I wrote in my December 14, 2004 article below, “Ohio Recount: County Election Board Chair Disputes comments from spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell”, polling places were set up where one location served multiple precincts. As Jacobs correctly points out, enough of these precincts had a different order for Presidential candidates to cause a significant amount of ballots placed in the “wrong box” to affect the election. Since this was in Democratic Cuyahoga county where Kerry received nearly 2/3rds of the vote, the problem would be twice as likely to hurt Kerry as Bush.

Jacobs drives home his point with actual analysis of ballots in locations that served multiple precincts and rigorous application of statistical analysis. His statistics predict when placement of candidates on ballots cause accidental “cross-voting” and thus increases tallies for Bush or third party candidates and the vote tallies bear them out. Where ballots in one location have either Kerry or Badnarik in the same location depending on precinct, you see a 5 times increase in Badnarik’s vote over his average support in surrounding precincts.

Many of us have doubted the accuracy of the 2004 Presidential Election tally in Ohio. My previous articles have listed reasons why we were suspicious but I could never find a “smoking gun”. As sure as I was that there was malfeasance in the election, and despite me and many other people unearthing more and more suspicious actions, events and tallies, I was beginning to doubt that any proof the likes of which would stand up to the legal system’s rules of evidence would be found. The evidence unearthed by Jacobs is hard to ignore and may constitute the smoking gun for which many of us have been searching.

Having ballots with changed orders of Presidential candidates in multiple precincts that vote at the same location is hard to explain. Remember, we are talking about people for whom conducting elections is their profession. One would expect any elections professional would recognize the potential problems with this scenario and avoid them. Cuyahoga County, like other counties in Ohio and probably around the country is served by a single team led by a single person. It strains the limits of believability to assert that there was not an intent behind changing the order of Presidential candidates in ballots in the county, let alone at locations where multiple precincts voted and thus could introduce the error asserted by Jacobs.

I’ll let James Q Jacobs have the last word in this article. Here are three paragraphs from the Conclusions portion of his study:

Any official inquiry into the 2004 irregularities needs to be independent of political interests. The fact that the irregularities discussed herein are known, and yet no official inquiry into the election has occurred, illustrates the broader failure of the current election process to respond to problems or to hold officials accountable for their actions. Polling places should never have been arranged such as in Ohio, with multiple ballot orders and separate casting and counting devices. Measures are required to prevent the possibility of similar future flawed election designs. To this end, control of elections should be removed from competing political interests and actors to politically-independent processes, with at the least, independent and political oversight of elections.

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My Prior articles on problems with the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio

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Election 2004 and RFK Jr – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Questions Whether 2004 Ohio Prez Vote Stolen 6/1/2006 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_060601_election_2004_and_rf.htm

Ohio Elections Officials Convicted of Tampering with 2004 Presidential Recount

January 25, 2007

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