Amidst these massive glitches, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who personally negotiated the deal for the Diebold machines that he called the "best in the nation," insisted through his spokesperson Carlo LaParo that "The new touch-screen systems went well."
Odd results for election reform initiatives
The Reform Ohio Now (RON) campaign saw polls throughout the state showing two of its four election reform to be passing easily. Both the Columbus Dispatch and University of Akron Bliss Institute polls predicted victories for Issue 2 and Issue 3, only to see them go down to sudden and statistically unexplainable defeat. Issue 2 allowed for early voting in Ohio and Issue 3 reduced the amount of money an individual can give a candidate from $10,000 to $2,000. Both were predicted to pass with 59% and 61% of the vote, respectively.
The Dispatch mail-in poll was completed on Thursday Nov. 3, just prior to Election Day. The Dispatch poll is so accurate, that at least two academic studies have been published about it in the Public Opinion Quarterly (POQ). The first paper documents that the Dispatch poll between 1980-1984 was far more accurate than telephone polling. The study showed the Dispatch error rate at only 1.6 percentage points versus phone error rates of 5%. A companion study published in POQ in 2000 dealt specifically with the question of statewide referenda. A quote from the study: "The average error for the Dispatch forecast of these referenda was 5.4 percentage points, compared to 7.2 percentage points for the telephone surveys."
The academic study concluded that the Dispatch's mail survey outperformed telephone surveys for both referenda and candidate's races.
The fact that the Dispatch was nearly 30 points off in predicting the "YES" vote on Issue 3 should raise concerns.
Dispatch Associate Publisher Mike Curtin shrugged off the worst polling performance since the infamous Literary Digest predicted that Alf Landon would beat FDR in 1936. In an email obtained by the Free Press, Curtin told California voting rights activist Sheri Myers, "There is no evidence of any irregularities in Ohio's 2005 voting results." Curtin, according to election attorney Cliff Arnebeck, had also dismissed anyone who raises issues about Ohio's 2004 presidential election results as "conspiracy theorists."
Curtin co-authored the scholarly papers on the Dispatch's legendary polling accuracy. Editorially, the Dispatch has not endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
Curtin pleaded with the voting rights activists, "Please don't buy into the conspiracy theories without any shred of evidence." Curtin did not deal with the specifics about how the polling, which he was so proud of, was up to 40 points off on certain issues for the first time ever. In another email explaining the unprecedented Dispatch polling debacle, Dispatch Editor Darrel Rowland told a Tribune Media Services columnist that, "I also can't imagine voting technology is to blame, when both Democrats and Republicans are involved in every crucial step of the way."
Under oath testimony at public hearings sponsored by the Free Press after the 2004 presidential election revealed that election workers admit that they have little or no knowledge of how e-voting technology works and are totally reliant on private vendors for vote counting inside the "black box." Ohio's other major newspapers routinely suggest what Rowland "can't imagine."
Rowland did note that despite the Dispatch's recent embracing of its unprecedented incompetence at polling that, "Over the years we have found that the people who return our mail poll are likely voters - the holy grail in political polls. Our track record in gauging public opinion in this state regarded as a national political bellwether is unparalleled.
Don McTigue, the attorney for RON, told the Free Press that Blackwell had issued a ruling barring RON volunteers from the county vote counting rooms on election eve. McTigue and the RON volunteers had filled out a request form to view the counting eleven days prior to Election Day, but Blackwell had added a new form to verify which group was representing the issues. This new form was not filled out, McTigue admits.
Matt Damschroder, the Franklin County Board of Elections Director, allowed the RON observers in anyway, despite their being barred from the vote counting rooms in other counties.
This is the second straight election in which the polling organizations were spectacularly wrong in Ohio. In the 2004 election, the media consortium exit polls, as well as the Harris and Zogby polls, all declared Kerry the winner on Election Day.
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