2004 United States election voting controversies
Encyclopedia
During the 2004 United States presidential election
, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote, whether ineligible voters were registered, whether voters were registered multiple times, and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the presidential election, in which the incumbent, Republican President
George W. Bush
, defeated the Democratic challenger, Senator
John Kerry
. Despite the existing controversies, Kerry conceded the election the following day on November 3.
There was generally less attention paid to the Senate and House elections and to various state
races, but some of them were also questioned, especially the gubernatorial election in Washington
, which was decided by less than 0.01% and involved several recounts and lawsuits. The final recount also reversed the outcome of this election.
new voters. In some cases, Republicans challenged or prepared to challenge the validity of many new registrations, citing instances of fictitious names such as Mary Poppins appearing on the voter rolls. Democrats accuse the Republicans of using this as an excuse for vote suppression.
There were also complaints about the rejection of registrations by government agencies. College students encountered difficulties in registering where they attended school. Some officials rejected voter registration forms on grounds that were contested, such as a failure to use paper of a particular weight (Ohio) or a failure to check a box on the form (Florida
).
Aside from such official actions, there were disputes about other voter registration activities. In Nevada
and Oregon
, a company hired by the Republican National Committee
solicited voter registration forms, but was accused of filing only the Republicans’ forms and shredding those completed by Democrats. Individuals tenuously linked to nonprofit organizations, ACORN
and the NAACP, were accused of submitting false voter registration forms and of carelessly or deliberately failing to submit some valid ones that they had received.
An analysis of Florida voter rolls in December 2004 alleged that over 64,000 registered voters had names that also appeared in a Social Security
database of death claims, according to the Chicago Tribune
. In response, the Brennan Center for Justice
found reason to believe that the undisclosed methodology of the source article may have been inaccurate, and further noted that there was no allegation of anyone voting in someone else's name.
A New York Daily News article alleged 46,000 were people registered to vote in both New York city and Florida. A Cleveland Plain Dealer article identified 27,000 people possibly registered in both Ohio and in Florida, with 400 possibly voting in both states consistently in the previous four years. The article attempted to match voter rolls to each other, which likely yielded significant errors.
.) A post-election lawsuit brought by the NAACP
, the People for the American Way Foundation
, and other organizations resulted in a settlement in 2002 in which the state agreed to restore eligible voters to the rolls and take other steps to improve election procedures.
The issue returned to prominence in 2004 when Florida announced another planned purge, again based on a list of felons. The state government initially attempted to keep the list secret. When a court ordered its release, it was found to contain mostly Democrats and a disproportionate number of racial minorities. Faced with media documentation that the list included thousands of errors, the state abandoned the attempt to use it. Some of the voters improperly purged in 2000 had not been restored .
Dennis Kucinich
commented on allegations of voter suppression
in Ohio during the 2004 election:
John Pappageorge
, a Republican state legislator in Michigan
said in the summer of 2004, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election." Pappageorge later claimed he was taken out of context saying, "In the context that we were talking about, I said we’ve got to get the vote up in Oakland (County) and the vote down in Detroit. You get it down with a good message."
Court injunctions were placed by the Franklin County Common Pleas
Court against MoveOn for verbally threatening and harassing individuals who identified themselves as Republican. On October 5, a Bush-Cheney campaign volunteer in Orlando had his arm broken when trying to stop union activists from storming the campaign office. The "storming" was part of a massive simultaneous campaign against 20 pro-Republican headquarters.
Among the factors thought to be at work were: the general increase in voter turnout; a particular increase in first-time voters whose processing required more time; and confusion about the providing of provisional ballots, which many states had never used before.
Distribution of voting machines proved to be a problem in some districts. In Ohio, some precincts had too few machines causing long waiting times, while others had plenty of machines per registered voters. Officials cited a late rush of registrations after voting machines had already been allocated as one source of long lines.
, there were issues concerning the ambiguities and uncertainties that arose from punch-card ballots, such as the hanging chads
(incompletely punched holes). In 2004, the punch-card ballots were still widely used in some states. For example, most Ohio voters used punch-card ballots,
and more than 90,000 ballots cast in Ohio were treated as not including a vote for President; this "undervote" could arise because the voter chose not to cast a vote or because of a malfunction of the punch-card system.
For the country as a whole, the voting technology used in the 2004 election breaks down as follows:
Before 2004, the increasing use of electronic voting machines had raised several issues:
The state of California
ordered that 15,000 of its Diebold
voting machines not be used in the 2004 elections due to flaws that the company failed to disclose.
In September 2005, the Government Accountability Office
released a report noting electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election process while citing concerns about security and reliability raised by numerous groups, and detailing specific problems that have occurred.
In 2004, there was contention over the standards for determining whether to count provisional ballots. In Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
ruled that Ohio would not count provisional ballots, even those from properly registered voters, that were submitted at the wrong precinct. This ruling was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
Absentee ballots were also an issue. There were reports of absentee ballots being mailed out too late for some voters to complete and return them in time. In some instances, officials argued that last-minute litigation over Ralph Nader
’s ballot status or other issues had prevented them from finalizing the absentee ballots as early as they wanted to. In Broward County, Florida
, some 58,000 absentee ballots were delivered to the Postal Service
to be mailed to voters, according to county election officials, but the Postal Service said it had never received them.
, to prematurely conclude that Kerry won the election. Expert opinion was divided concerning what inferences should be drawn from the cited discrepancies.
Mitofsky International, the company responsible for exit polling for the National Election Pool
and its member news organizations, released a report detailing the 2004 election's exit polling. At issue were the early release of some poll information, issues regarding correcting exit poll data using actual voter totals, and differences between exit polls and official results.
The NEP report stated that "the size of the average exit poll error ... was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which we have data." and that exit polling estimates overstated Kerry's share of the vote in 26 states by more than one standard error
and overestimated Bush's share in 4 states by more than one standard error. It concluded that these discrepancies between the exit polls and the official results were "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters". Polling expert John Zogby
later called this explanation "preposterous". The NEP report further stated that "Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment. Our analysis of the difference between the vote count and the exit poll at each polling location in our sample has found no systematic differences
for precincts using touch screen and optical scan voting equipment."
A study performed by the Caltech
/ MIT
Voting Technology Project concluded that "there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electronic voting machines were used to steal the 2004 election for President Bush." This study was criticized for using data that had been corrected to match the official count, and thus "essentially analyzing rounding error". On December 5, 2004 Charles Stewart III of MIT released a revised report which, he said, used pre-corrected data. Two days later, however, Warren Mitofsky
, who had overseen the exit polling, stated that the pre-corrected data were proprietary and would not be released.
One paper (and a follow-up book) concluded that discrepancies in the exit polls were evidence that the election results were off,
though others alleged this paper was unscientific.
Following the 2004 election, researchers looked at ways in which polling methodologies might be flawed and explored ways to improve polling in the future.
s, who were only 11 percent of the voters. Another paper studied the residual vote rates of the election technology used and the distribution of those technologies among race and found that the percentage of spoiled votes did not disproportionally affect any particular race.
requested a recount of 11 wards in New Hampshire
where vote totals for Bush were 5–15% higher than predicted by exit polls. The Nader campaign reports:
In Ohio, two minor-party candidates, Michael Badnarik
(Libertarian) and David Cobb
(Green
, though not on the ballot in Ohio) cooperated in requesting a recount.
According to Ohio recount rules, 3% of a county's votes are tallied by hand, and typically one or more whole precincts are selected and combined to get the 3% sample. The 3% must be randomly selected, and all hand counts are to be performed in public (with observers). After the hand count, the sample is fed into the tabulator. If there is no discrepancy, the remaining ballots can be counted by the machine. Otherwise, a hand recount must be done for the whole county.
The Cobb campaign claimed that the precincts were not randomly selected and the ballots were pre-sorted. They suggested that this indicates that precincts were selected that would match the machine count, in order to prevent a county-wide hand count, i.e. that it was "staged". Two poll workers were convicted of preselecting ballots for the recounts.
Around the country there were also recounts of races for state and local office. Most of them reflected simply the closeness of the official tally, but some also raised issues of election irregularities. These included the elections for:
joined Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones
of Ohio
in filing a Congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes. The Senate voted the objection down 1-74; the House voted the objection down 31-267. It was only the second Congressional objection to an entire State
's electoral delegation in U.S. history; the first instance
was in 1877, when all the electors from three southern states were challenged, and one from Oregon. (An objection to a single "faithless elector" was filed in 1969.)
United States presidential election, 2004
The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote, whether ineligible voters were registered, whether voters were registered multiple times, and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the presidential election, in which the incumbent, Republican President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, defeated the Democratic challenger, Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
. Despite the existing controversies, Kerry conceded the election the following day on November 3.
There was generally less attention paid to the Senate and House elections and to various state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
races, but some of them were also questioned, especially the gubernatorial election in Washington
Washington gubernatorial election, 2004
The election for governor of Washington on November 2, 2004 gained national attention for its legal twists and extremely close finish. Notable for being among the closest political races in United States election history, Republican Dino Rossi was declared the winner in the initial automated count...
, which was decided by less than 0.01% and involved several recounts and lawsuits. The final recount also reversed the outcome of this election.
Voter registration
In the months leading up to the 2004 election, both parties made efforts to registerVoter registration
Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens and residents to check in with some central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive.-Centralized/compulsory vs...
new voters. In some cases, Republicans challenged or prepared to challenge the validity of many new registrations, citing instances of fictitious names such as Mary Poppins appearing on the voter rolls. Democrats accuse the Republicans of using this as an excuse for vote suppression.
There were also complaints about the rejection of registrations by government agencies. College students encountered difficulties in registering where they attended school. Some officials rejected voter registration forms on grounds that were contested, such as a failure to use paper of a particular weight (Ohio) or a failure to check a box on the form (Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
).
Aside from such official actions, there were disputes about other voter registration activities. In Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
and Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, a company hired by the Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
solicited voter registration forms, but was accused of filing only the Republicans’ forms and shredding those completed by Democrats. Individuals tenuously linked to nonprofit organizations, ACORN
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues...
and the NAACP, were accused of submitting false voter registration forms and of carelessly or deliberately failing to submit some valid ones that they had received.
An analysis of Florida voter rolls in December 2004 alleged that over 64,000 registered voters had names that also appeared in a Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
database of death claims, according to the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. In response, the Brennan Center for Justice
Brennan Center for Justice
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on issues involving democracy and justice...
found reason to believe that the undisclosed methodology of the source article may have been inaccurate, and further noted that there was no allegation of anyone voting in someone else's name.
A New York Daily News article alleged 46,000 were people registered to vote in both New York city and Florida. A Cleveland Plain Dealer article identified 27,000 people possibly registered in both Ohio and in Florida, with 400 possibly voting in both states consistently in the previous four years. The article attempted to match voter rolls to each other, which likely yielded significant errors.
Purges of voter lists
State efforts to purge voter rolls have led to disputes, notably in Florida. Before the 2000 election, Florida officials purged approximately 100,000 registered voters on the grounds that they were convicted felons (and therefore ineligible to vote under Florida law) or dead. Many of those whose names were purged were "false positives" (not actually felons). (See Florida Central Voter FileFlorida Central Voter File
The Florida Central Voter File was an internal list of legally eligible voters used by the US Florida Department of State Division of Elections to monitor the official voter lists maintained by the 67 county governments in the State of Florida between 1998 and January 1, 2006...
.) A post-election lawsuit brought by the NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
, the People for the American Way Foundation
People for the American Way Foundation
People For the American Way Foundation is the charitable arm of People For the American Way , a progressive advocacy organization in the United States...
, and other organizations resulted in a settlement in 2002 in which the state agreed to restore eligible voters to the rolls and take other steps to improve election procedures.
The issue returned to prominence in 2004 when Florida announced another planned purge, again based on a list of felons. The state government initially attempted to keep the list secret. When a court ordered its release, it was found to contain mostly Democrats and a disproportionate number of racial minorities. Faced with media documentation that the list included thousands of errors, the state abandoned the attempt to use it. Some of the voters improperly purged in 2000 had not been restored .
Voter suppression
RepresentativeUnited States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
commented on allegations of voter suppression
Voter suppression
Voter suppression is a strategy to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing people from exercising their right to vote. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters...
in Ohio during the 2004 election:
John Pappageorge
John Pappageorge
John George Pappageorge is a member of the Michigan State Senate.-Biography:John Pappageorge was born to a Greek family on the east side of Detroit, Michigan....
, a Republican state legislator in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
said in the summer of 2004, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election." Pappageorge later claimed he was taken out of context saying, "In the context that we were talking about, I said we’ve got to get the vote up in Oakland (County) and the vote down in Detroit. You get it down with a good message."
Court injunctions were placed by the Franklin County Common Pleas
Court against MoveOn for verbally threatening and harassing individuals who identified themselves as Republican. On October 5, a Bush-Cheney campaign volunteer in Orlando had his arm broken when trying to stop union activists from storming the campaign office. The "storming" was part of a massive simultaneous campaign against 20 pro-Republican headquarters.
Practical impediments
In every election, some voters encounter practical impediments to voting, such as long lines at the polling place. In 2004, however, the issue received increased attention. In many places, some voters had to wait several hours to vote. Ohio voters, in particular, were plagued by this issue. A study conducted by the Democratic National Committee in the summer of 2005 found that long lines forced three percent of the state's registered voters to abstain.Among the factors thought to be at work were: the general increase in voter turnout; a particular increase in first-time voters whose processing required more time; and confusion about the providing of provisional ballots, which many states had never used before.
Distribution of voting machines proved to be a problem in some districts. In Ohio, some precincts had too few machines causing long waiting times, while others had plenty of machines per registered voters. Officials cited a late rush of registrations after voting machines had already been allocated as one source of long lines.
Voting machines
In the 2000 election, especially in the disputed recounts in FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, there were issues concerning the ambiguities and uncertainties that arose from punch-card ballots, such as the hanging chads
Chad (paper)
Chad refers to paper fragments created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, typically computer punched tape or punched cards. Sometimes chad has been used as a mass noun or as a countable noun, and the plural is commonly either "chad" or "chads"...
(incompletely punched holes). In 2004, the punch-card ballots were still widely used in some states. For example, most Ohio voters used punch-card ballots,
and more than 90,000 ballots cast in Ohio were treated as not including a vote for President; this "undervote" could arise because the voter chose not to cast a vote or because of a malfunction of the punch-card system.
For the country as a whole, the voting technology used in the 2004 election breaks down as follows:
| Machine type | % of ballots cast |
|---|---|
| Punch card | 22.3 |
| Lever machine | 14.7 |
| Paper ballot | 1.7 |
| Optical scan | 29.6 |
| Electronic | 22.1 |
| Mixed | 9.6 |
Before 2004, the increasing use of electronic voting machines had raised several issues:
- Security. Without proper testing and certification, critics believe electronic votingElectronic votingElectronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
machines could produce an incorrect report due to malfunction or deliberate manipulation. - Recounts. Voting machine recounts should include auditingInformation technology auditAn information technology audit, or information systems audit, is an examination of the management controls within an Information technology infrastructure. The evaluation of obtained evidence determines if the information systems are safeguarding assets, maintaining data integrity, and operating...
of hardware, software and the comparison of multiple vote records. NevadaNevadaNevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
was one of several states which insisted on electronic voting systems that create a paper trail. - Partisan ties. Democrats noted the Republican or conservative ties of several leading executives in the companies providing the machines.
The state of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
ordered that 15,000 of its Diebold
Diebold
Diebold, Inc. is a United States-based security systems corporation that is engaged primarily in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems , electronic and physical security products , and software and integrated systems for global financial and...
voting machines not be used in the 2004 elections due to flaws that the company failed to disclose.
In September 2005, the Government Accountability Office
Government Accountability Office
The Government Accountability Office is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of the United States Congress. It is located in the legislative branch of the United States government.-History:...
released a report noting electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election process while citing concerns about security and reliability raised by numerous groups, and detailing specific problems that have occurred.
Provisional and absentee ballots
Provisional ballots are for would-be voters who assert that they are registered but whose names cannot be found in the list available at the polling place. The voter completes a written ballot, which is placed in a sealed envelope. The ballot is opened and counted only if the voter is subsequently found to be registered.In 2004, there was contention over the standards for determining whether to count provisional ballots. In Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
Ken Blackwell
John Kenneth Blackwell is an American politician and activist who served as the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1979 to 1980 and Ohio Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007. A Republican, he was the first African-American to be the candidate for governor of a major party in Ohio. In 2006, Blackwell...
ruled that Ohio would not count provisional ballots, even those from properly registered voters, that were submitted at the wrong precinct. This ruling was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
Absentee ballots were also an issue. There were reports of absentee ballots being mailed out too late for some voters to complete and return them in time. In some instances, officials argued that last-minute litigation over Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
’s ballot status or other issues had prevented them from finalizing the absentee ballots as early as they wanted to. In Broward County, Florida
Broward County, Florida
-2000 Census:As of the census of 2000, there were 1,623,018 people, 654,445 households, and 411,645 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,346 people per square mile . There were 741,043 housing units at an average density of 615 per square mile...
, some 58,000 absentee ballots were delivered to the Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
to be mailed to voters, according to county election officials, but the Postal Service said it had never received them.
Exit polling
The 2004 election brought new attention to the issue of exit polls. Discrepancies existed between early exit poll information and the officially reported results. These discrepancies led some, including British Prime Minister Tony BlairTony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, to prematurely conclude that Kerry won the election. Expert opinion was divided concerning what inferences should be drawn from the cited discrepancies.
Mitofsky International, the company responsible for exit polling for the National Election Pool
National Election Pool
The National Election Pool is a consortium of American news organizations formed in 2003 to provide "information on Election Night about the vote count, election analysis and election projections." See ....
and its member news organizations, released a report detailing the 2004 election's exit polling. At issue were the early release of some poll information, issues regarding correcting exit poll data using actual voter totals, and differences between exit polls and official results.
The NEP report stated that "the size of the average exit poll error ... was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which we have data." and that exit polling estimates overstated Kerry's share of the vote in 26 states by more than one standard error
Standard error (statistics)
The standard error is the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of a statistic. The term may also be used to refer to an estimate of that standard deviation, derived from a particular sample used to compute the estimate....
and overestimated Bush's share in 4 states by more than one standard error. It concluded that these discrepancies between the exit polls and the official results were "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters". Polling expert John Zogby
John Zogby
John Zogby is an American political pollster and first senior fellow at The Catholic University of America's Life Cycle Institute. He is the founder, president and CEO of Zogby International, a polling firm known for both phone polling and interactive, Internet-based polling.-Early years:Zogby...
later called this explanation "preposterous". The NEP report further stated that "Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment. Our analysis of the difference between the vote count and the exit poll at each polling location in our sample has found no systematic differences
for precincts using touch screen and optical scan voting equipment."
A study performed by the Caltech
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
/ MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
Voting Technology Project concluded that "there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electronic voting machines were used to steal the 2004 election for President Bush." This study was criticized for using data that had been corrected to match the official count, and thus "essentially analyzing rounding error". On December 5, 2004 Charles Stewart III of MIT released a revised report which, he said, used pre-corrected data. Two days later, however, Warren Mitofsky
Warren Mitofsky
Warren Mitofsky was an American political pollster.Mitofsky graduated in 1957 from Guilford College and was executive director of the CBS News election and survey unit from 1967 to 1990...
, who had overseen the exit polling, stated that the pre-corrected data were proprietary and would not be released.
One paper (and a follow-up book) concluded that discrepancies in the exit polls were evidence that the election results were off,
though others alleged this paper was unscientific.
Following the 2004 election, researchers looked at ways in which polling methodologies might be flawed and explored ways to improve polling in the future.
Racial discrimination
Some of the issues described above have created problems for voters generally. Others, however, by accident or (it is charged) by design, have disproportionately affected racial minorities. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s, who were only 11 percent of the voters. Another paper studied the residual vote rates of the election technology used and the distribution of those technologies among race and found that the percentage of spoiled votes did not disproportionally affect any particular race.
Recounts
Ralph NaderRalph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
requested a recount of 11 wards in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
where vote totals for Bush were 5–15% higher than predicted by exit polls. The Nader campaign reports:
In Ohio, two minor-party candidates, Michael Badnarik
Michael Badnarik
Michael J. Badnarik is an American software engineer, political figure, and former radio talk show host. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 elections, and placed fourth in the race, behind independent candidate Ralph Nader...
(Libertarian) and David Cobb
David Cobb
David Keith Cobb is an American activist and was the 2004 presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States .-Career and political activities:...
(Green
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
, though not on the ballot in Ohio) cooperated in requesting a recount.
According to Ohio recount rules, 3% of a county's votes are tallied by hand, and typically one or more whole precincts are selected and combined to get the 3% sample. The 3% must be randomly selected, and all hand counts are to be performed in public (with observers). After the hand count, the sample is fed into the tabulator. If there is no discrepancy, the remaining ballots can be counted by the machine. Otherwise, a hand recount must be done for the whole county.
The Cobb campaign claimed that the precincts were not randomly selected and the ballots were pre-sorted. They suggested that this indicates that precincts were selected that would match the machine count, in order to prevent a county-wide hand count, i.e. that it was "staged". Two poll workers were convicted of preselecting ballots for the recounts.
Around the country there were also recounts of races for state and local office. Most of them reflected simply the closeness of the official tally, but some also raised issues of election irregularities. These included the elections for:
- Governor of Washington, between Dino RossiDino RossiDino Rossi is an American commercial real estate executive, former Washington State Senator, two-time Republican candidate for Governor of Washington, and former Republican candidate for United States Senate. His first run for the Governor's mansion in the 2004 election became the closest...
and Christine GregoireChristine GregoireChristine O'Grady "Chris" Gregoire is the 22nd and current Governor of the state of Washington, and a member of the Democratic Party. Gregoire defeated Republican candidate Dino Rossi in 2004, and again in 2008. She is the second female governor of Washington...
. Issues raised included the mailing of absentee ballots, the counting of provisional and absentee ballots, correction of improper marks on optically scanned ballots, and alleged tampering with electronic voting machines. The first tally and the first recount gave the election to Republican Dino Rossi. However, after two statewide recounts, Gregoire, the Democrat, had a narrow lead of 129 votes out of 2.8 million cast. A Republican lawsuit seeking to overturn the result and force a re-vote was rejected by the court, after which Rossi conceded the election. See Washington gubernatorial election, 2004Washington gubernatorial election, 2004The election for governor of Washington on November 2, 2004 gained national attention for its legal twists and extremely close finish. Notable for being among the closest political races in United States election history, Republican Dino Rossi was declared the winner in the initial automated count...
. - North Carolina Commissioner of AgricultureNorth Carolina Commissioner of AgricultureThe Commissioner of Agriculture is the head of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, as well as chairman of the state Board of Agriculture. As an executive officer elected statewide, the commissioner is also a member of the North Carolina Council of State.Leonidas L....
, between Britt CobbBritt CobbW. Britt Cobb, Jr. is the chief of staff for North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue and the former Secretary of Administration ....
and Steve TroxlerSteve TroxlerSteve Troxler is a tobacco farmer and the Republican Commissioner of Agriculture for the U.S. state of North Carolina, sworn in February 8, 2005 after an extended election dispute following the November 2004 statewide election....
. The number of votes lost due to a voting machine malfunction in Carteret CountyCarteret County, North CarolinaCarteret County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of 2010, the population was 66,469. Its county seat is Beaufort. Most of the county is part of the Crystal Coast....
(over 4,000) exceed the reported margin of about 2,000. A new election was called for by state election supervisors, but was mooted when Cobb conceded. - Governor of Puerto RicoGovernor of Puerto RicoThe Governor of Puerto Rico is the Head of Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Since 1948, the Governor has been elected by the people of Puerto Rico...
, between Anibal Acevedo ViláAníbal Acevedo ViláAníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. He served as the eighth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a Commonwealth of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. He is a Harvard University alumnus and a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law,...
and Pedro RossellóPedro RossellóPedro Juan Rosselló González, M.D., , is a Puerto Rican physician and politician who served as the sixth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001...
. Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá was declared the winner after several months of disputes The two candidates were separated by just under 4,000 votes.
Objection to certification of Ohio's electoral votes
On 6 January 2005, Senator Barbara BoxerBarbara Boxer
Barbara Levy Boxer is the junior United States Senator from California . A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives ....
joined Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Stephanie "Tubbs" Jones was a Democratic politician and member of the United States House of Representatives. She represented the 11th District of Ohio, which encompasses most of downtown and eastern Cleveland and many of the eastern suburbs in Cuyahoga County, including Euclid, Cleveland Heights,...
of Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
in filing a Congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes. The Senate voted the objection down 1-74; the House voted the objection down 31-267. It was only the second Congressional objection to an entire State
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
's electoral delegation in U.S. history; the first instance
United States presidential election, 1876
The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed and controversial presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165, with 20 votes uncounted...
was in 1877, when all the electors from three southern states were challenged, and one from Oregon. (An objection to a single "faithless elector" was filed in 1969.)
External links
- "Vote Watch 2004" - information and links about many incidents (pro-Kerry viewpoint)
- Tom Zeller Jr., The New York Times Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried November 12, 2004
- Steve Rosenthal, Washington Post Okay, We Lost Ohio. The Question Is, Why? December 5, 2004
- William Raspberry, Washington Post Comments on problems with the 2004 election January 10, 2005
- Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating, Washington Post Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether November 11, 2004
- Mark Hertsgaard, Mother Jones, Recounting Ohio November 2005
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Rolling StoneRolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, Was the 2004 Election Stolen? June 1, 2006 - Farhad Manjoo, SalonSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, Was the 2004 Election Stolen? No. -- Critique of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone Article June 3, 2006 - Final Tallies Minus Exit Polls = A Statistical Mystery!, John Allen PaulosJohn Allen PaulosJohn Allen Paulos is a professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia who has gained fame as a writer and speaker on mathematics and the importance of mathematical literacy...
. Nov. 24, 2004 - Programmer Clint Curtis's affidavit - http://www.bradblog.com/Docs/ClintCurtis/CC_Affidavit_120604.pdf