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sentee ballots pre-punched for Bush, faulty computer screens reflecting votes for Bush that were meant for Kerry, apparently deliberate misinformation regarding polling locations, inadequate poll worker training in predominantly Democratic precincts, and much much more threw scores of polling places into serious disarray.
In two heated public post-election hearings, attended by a thousand central Ohioans, several hundred angry voters testified - under oath - on the details of the irregularities that quickly led to the widespread belief that the election had been stolen. Their testimony got virtually no mainstream media coverage. But the verbatim essence of their sworn affidavits appears in this book.
Like the elections of 2000 and 2002, much of the doubt about the election of 2004 continues to center on the counting of votes, especially on electronic voting machines.
About 15% of Ohio's ballots were cast on computerized devices that left no paper trail. With more than 5.7 million votes cast in a state yielding an official margin for Bush of less than 117,000 votes, a skewed vote count on those machines alone could have made the difference for George W. Bush.
Sworn testimony recorded in public hearings in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Warren cast serious doubt on how those voting machines performed. In Warren, voters pressing Kerry's name on electronic screens repeatedly saw Bush's name light up. In predominantly Democratic Lucas County, Diebold Opti-scan machines broke down early in the day and were never fixed, denying thousands - mostly Democrats - their right to vote.
Reports surfacing in other precincts verified that technicians dismantled key electronic machines before a recount could be certified. Election officials in Franklin County (where Columbus is located) reported that 77 of their machines malfunctioned on Election Day, virtually all of them in heavily Democratic precincts. Inner city precincts in Cincinnati and Cleveland had all-too-familiar Florida-style problems with their punch card machines.
To date, there has been no credible, independent audit of these machines, not in Ohio or in any other state. In Ohio, Secretary of State Blackwell issued an order in the weeks following the election that all 2004 election records, paper and electronic, were to be sealed from public access and inspection. As of this book's publication date, those records remain unobtainable.
The controversy surrounding the voting machines remains extremely fierce in part because major manufacturers such as Diebold, ES&S, Triad, and others are controlled by partisan Republican companies with secret proprietary software. This unfortunate lack of transparency calls all US elections into question.
In a highly publicized controversy, Diebolt principal Walden O'Dell, a resident of central Ohio, pledged in a 2003 GOP fundraising letter to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to George W. Bush, leaving the indelible suspicion that he might do it fraudulently. US Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) is a principle in another major voting machine company, ES&S, on which many millions of votes were cast in 2004. Hagel was elected and re-elected in balloting that relied on ES&S machines. Such apparent conflicts of interest have left the poisonous impression that America's right to cast a ballot in secret has been transcended by a private partisan company's right to count votes in secret.
In fact, the question of electronic voting machines remains the single largest "black hole" in the entire electoral process. Nationwide at least 30% of the votes in 2004 were cast on such "black box" machines, more than enough to have tipped the balance in the popular vote from John Kerry to George W. Bush.
Despite the intense battle over this election and the scrutiny it has received worldwide, it is virtually certain there will never be a clear answer as to how many votes cast on those machines really went to which candidate. The 3.5 million-vote margin claimed by George W. Bush in the 2004 election remains unverifiable and, at best,
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