Bob Batchelor
Coshocton County Prosecutor
318 Chestnut Street Coshocton, Ohio 43812
(740) 622-3566 bobbatchelor@coshoctoncounty.net
October 14, 2008,
Re: Request for immediate criminal investigation into election fraud in federal election.
Sent: via email and US Post
Dear Bob Batchelor,
This is a request for an investigation into election fraud that happened in Coshocton County. The actual ballots that are the evidence for this crime represent all 43 precincts in which the citizens of Coshocton County voted in the General Election in 2004, a federal election. Those ballots are now in the city of Columbus, in the protective custody of the Ohio Secretary of State (SOS) Jennifer Brunner as part of a Federal Court Case, King Lincoln Et. Al. v Brunner, Case No. C2 06 745.
I understand that you have the duty of representing and advising the Coshocton County Board of Elections. I want to now raise the issue that your county may need to bring in another prosecutor, as there may be a conflict of interest for you to investigate the same Board of Elections of which you represent and advise. Please advise me as to how you will proceed in this case.
The Coshocton County Board of Elections is currently conducting yet another federal election, for which early voting is underway and the final day of voting is November 4, 2008. The counting and tabulation can continue for ten or more days after the election. The subject I bring up is quite serious, as is my concern as to those conducting the current election. Please advise me as to your plan of action to make sure that your county is to be immediately protected from election fraud this year, which has come through the literal hands of your election officials in 2004. As all 43 precincts were affected in 2004, this would have to have been done by someone with lots of access to the ballots. For multiple people to have looked at and handled these ballots, and nothing to have been said, I question some sort of group involvement. So what is happening this year, and what will the integrity of Coshocton County's election be? The voters there spend a lot of money to have their elections run in a manner in which they expect to know the actual vote count. A crime has been committed against both Sheriff Timothy Rogers and the voters. All involved, whether one or multiple people, need to be held accountable, and punished.
What my research has documented: I have spent several months researching the 2004 election records that the SOS has in protective storage. When I looked at the presidential race in Coshocton County, within 10 ballots I was distracted by the write-in votes for sheriff candidate David Corbett which appeared to be written in the same handwriting. I would actually guess it is the handwriting of several people. I have since then contacted Sheriff Tim Rogers who was the winning candidate in that race, with his name printed on the ballot. It is my understanding that David Corbett is a former Coshocton County Sheriff, and was a write-in candidate in 2004 because of his late filing to be on the ballot. Thus his name was not printed, but an open line was provided for him, and an oval to be filled in by a voter wanting to cast a vote for him. The majority of the ballots appear to be in the handwriting of just a few people, and there is a sprinkling of ballots that appear throughout the precincts that seem to be real votes. I have taken well over 600 photos of these ballots for my research. I have shown these ballots to other researchers, and to SOS election council Brian Green.
When I called up the Coshocton County Board of Elections and spoke to Kathy Hendricks on August 15, 2008 to ask questions about that election, here are some of the things I learned from Kathy.
- There were 6,864 write-in votes for David Corbett, and he lost the election.
- Incumbent Sheriff Timothy Rogers received 9,313 votes and won the election.
- Four people did the tabulation of the votes on November 2, 2004. That would be Don Andrews, Kathy Hendricks, Martha Babcock, and (probably) Mary Fritz (Kathy Hendricks wasn't sure if Mary had assisted).
- Kathy said, "We never ever, ever, had a write-in candidate get that many votes."
- They finished counting the ballots at 4:00 a.m.
- The tabulator was set up so that every time it would read the colored in oval that indicates a write-in ballot, the machine would stop. The election officials doing the tabulation would then visually look at the ballot and read off the name of the write-in vote.
There was also the 2004 recount of the presidential election. Again the ballots were handled and inspected. How is it possible that no seasoned election official spotted what I spotted within 10 ballots? Who did this? Many ballots throughout many precincts appear to have had the write in vote done on top of a corrugated box, as the texture of the box is part of the signature. There are also votes throughout many precincts written in a blue/black pencil, rather than a regular # 2 pencil. As an artist, I spot these things.
I did a little experiment, on two lined pieces of paper, I wrote out David Corbett as fast as I could, 100 times. When I started I could do this nine times per minute, by the time I finished I could only write it 7 times per minute and my hand and arm were cramping up. It took 12 minutes to write "David Corbett" 100 times. To do this on the actual ballots a person would have to get into the packages of all 43 precincts. The person would have to color in the oval, they would have to keep switching pieces of paper for each ballot, and they would have to locate the place to vote (low in the middle column). This would take a large amount of time, and could only be done by someone with fairly unlimited access to the ballots.
Yet another thing that would have taken a large amount of time and effort by election officials is that the ballots have been sorted. Not only sorted by presidential candidates, but also by ballots that were both Bush and Corbett supporters, and those that were both Kerry and Corbett supporters. To do this sorting in all 43 precincts would have taken a large amount of work and time. Who did this sorting, when, and why did they sort them? How could they not notice the repeated same handwriting? What does their handwriting look like?
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