Ken Blackwell purged Ohio Voter Rolls Oct 1st.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/85915/109
Blackwell purged Ohio Voter Rolls Oct 1st.
by KStreetProjector
Wed Oct 18, 2006 at 05:59:14 AM PDT
A friend, in a position to be present at lunches of GOP insiders here in DC called me on Thursday, they know of my ongoing efforts to make hackable voting end.
My friend was present as a group of Moderate GOP members with Ohio ties lamented how far the party had strayed. There was consensus at the table there was no way they should retain control. The table conversation began with the assumption they party would lose control in this election. The moderates started planning how to take back control of the GOP from the extremists.
Then, one insider, probably an extremist, but certainly very close to Mr. Ken Mehlman abruptly stopped the conversation. He told table that it was impossible they would lose either house. He also predicts an Ohio GOP sweep.
More Below.
* KStreetProjector's diary :: ::
*
He informed the group that over the last year, in four critical states the GOP needs to hold huge purges of the voter rolls have just been finished.
The insider did not say which four states, but did say Ohio was among them.
His claim was a new Diebold voter registry system had been installed over the last year. The last week of July and the first week of August a "test run" was made of the systems ability to purge ineligable voters. The purge generated names and test letters sent out to 1.2 million Ohio addresses with a focus on University's, Apartment addresses with high turnover. He claims they made the letters seem just functionary, but they have an action component to avoid being purged from the rolls.
The Insider warmed and said that Blackwell was brilliant in how he did this. The letter went on for a long time about changes in Ohio voting and security and suggested people who might have any concerns about their voting status could come by county offices and confirm their continued voting eligability before election day.
He further added, that since it was conducted as a "test" they only sent letters to a limited number of suspect addresses and "I suspect Blackwell chose criteria very very favorable for us."
Further the insider stated that Blackwell had only purged the lists after a full 60 days was given for people to respond. Which means even if a voter was on the "termination" list, they would still have been eligable to vote in the primary.
He told they table they believe the purge has probably caught up "hundreds of thousands of students, activists and wanderers with no real job" would show up at the polls and have to vote provisionally.
He predicted to the table that tens of thousands of voters will show up on election day, and once the provisionals are used up will simply not be able to at all.
He also said that this "operation" (The Insiders word, my friend was specific about this" had turned up a lot of additional fascinating information including a number of Democrats in elected office who are registered to vote in several places, and they may explore how to use this information against them.
I am going to assume, Mr. Blackwell's "test" purge went to no-one registered GOP. His criteria is something I am trying to get a copy of now.
Friday I called friends in Lorain County and Wayne County Ohio. I told them this DC tale. Neither of them had voted yet and I asked them if they could go on Monday to either early vote, or apply for an absentee ballot. And if possible sit for in the Elections Office for an hour and determine if anyone was expressiing surprise they were no longer registered.
If the sample of 11AM-1PM in Lorain County Ohio and 10AM-11AM in Wayne County Ohio are true. Then Ohio Democratic Voters had better go and Vote Early if they plan to vote at all.
At Lorain County, my friend arrived to find a line of over 15 people, many of whom had come back for a second time, all of them Democrats who had arrived to vote and been told that Drivers Liscence Information, or in one case Home Ownership Information had not matched the address provided for Voter Registration.
In one case a college student had been purged because he had changed dorms on campus.
In another case a local blue-collar worker had been purged because his voter registration had only his building address, but his drivers liscense included an apartment number. This tiny difference in information had led to his purging.
While everyone present seemed to have enough information to allow the records to be updated, my friend told me it was being done by one and only one clerk and was taking a very long time, about 5 minutes per person to resolve. Everyone in line confirmed that several voters had given up in frustration and left.
In Wayne County the sample is smaller, but during the one hour he stated 18 people arrived for absentee ballots or to vote early. Wayne County had 3 Diebold TSX Touch Screens set up for early voters. Of those who arrived two of them had been provisionally purged. The first was again a student from a local college, she was sent away and told she had to bring some ID beyond her student ID to prove she was resident at the College. She was wearing a Sherrod Brown button. The second was a local guy who owns two houses on the same block. His drivers liscence is to the one house where he keeps his cars, but his voter roll is in his house where he actually sleeps four houses away. This got resolved with a series of steps that included filling out two forms, and a clerk having to enter the corrected information into two seperate computers.
As an added bonus, My friend listened in and witnessed 8 retired ladies getting instructions on how to be poll workers on the new TSX machines. The instructor was a local elections board member. She was asked many questions by one of the retirees and her answer to almost all of them was "I don't know how it works, I just know how we are supposed to use it"
Get ready Ohio.
This story also may explain Mr. Blackwell's sudden discovery of the "two homes and is he really a qualifed Voter" now facing Strickland.
This Blackwell discovery of Mr. Strickland is actually "by-catch" of the much larger net thrown to eliminate hundred of thousands of democrats from the voting rolls.
ACTION: Get to your election boards, bring all the documentation you can. Demand a paper absentee ballot. Alert a everyone you know in Ohio.
Good luck out there. This doesn't eliminate the fact your Diebold System is utterly hackable, but it certainly explains how Rove plans to drag all your races into the margin of error so hitting the Diebold Button to steal the election doesn't look so obvious.
He has taken away your right to vote based on any piece of mismatched information in your state records.
I would expect that would be nearly everyone if the test was applied across the board. But I suspect it was not done that way by Mr. Blackwell.
It might be worth other states starting to look at this issue as well.
They are very much in love with the power they have my friends. I am increasing afraid this one one ends as another of my friends now says very often: "By Feeding the Tree of Liberty." UPDATED. I am surprised at the scope and range of response. I am very pleased that a handful of the posts appear to be gathering additional data. Again, I apologize for causing any discord. It was certainly not my intent. I would like to update the dKos Community on four (3) lines of thought or questions coming out of the spirited dialogue here. 1) The additional data, as of 10AM, on other voters in Ohio 2) Additional information from my friends in Lorain and Wayne County Ohio 3) The nature of the way information as seen by IT Wonks, vs. Management, this is particularly directed to Anastasia's concerns. 4) Offer a perspective on the nature of DC information sources. 1 - I have read all 790 posts. I appreciate the range of opinion and vigor of the community in writing. It does not appear that anyone has conducted my suggested action of going to their local BOE, voting, and seeing what is happenning. I still suggest this be done. There are posts, from Lorain, Franklin, Erie, Cayahoga and others which do confirm some people got a letter, flyer, or postcard instructing them on new voting ID rules. No one has confirmed the specific statement repeated to me requesting voters with concerns to check with local BOEs. I am unclear what letter (or letters, or postcards or mailers) Mr. Mehlman's insider was refering to. Nor should I or anyone care. What is confirmed is that a very large and very recent waive of mailings have gone out. Other posters have confirmed that if that mailing is returned to the BOE it is immediate grounds for purging a voter and/or forcing them to vote on provisional ballots. This is precisely the strategy described at the lunch attended by my friend. There are posts from Lorain, Franklin, Erie, Columbus and Cincinnatti confirming people who have voted before can not find their names in data bases where they would expect to be. The two most compelling pieces of information come from Lorain and Franklin Counties. The First, in Lorain, a post states a 20 year+ voter had a absentee ballot request rejected because of a failure to confirm a birthday. This is precisely the type of data point technical exclusion softwares which I fear have been used would generate. The Second, in Franklin details that over 100,000 people have been purged in the last few months from voter rolls. Also of great interest to me is the posting from Warren County. In this case a GOP voter, long gone from the state has had rejected mailings repeatedly (and with some care) resent by the BOE. This data point is the opposite side of the same strategy. Remove D voters on tiny technical issues. Work like mad to keep R voters until sued to remove them. 2 - I have spoken to my friends who both voted Monday in Wayne and Lorain Ohio and related the points above. For those who seemed obsessed that this diary was fact-less, I would suggest it shoudl be easy to confirm that the Wayne County Early Voting Area has 3 Diebold TSX machines, and that a Poll Worker Class was conducted during the time described. I added a post detailing the turned away student was from Wooster College. In a second call to my friend about the local guy with dirty chinos and the two houses, he provided me further detail that as he overheard Chino Man working out the problem with his registration, that the guy was clearly local surprised, and had voted many times in the past. He says it clearly appears he was stuck because some of his voter data, did not match other, non-voter-government data. My friend in Lorain County said that of the people he waited with, nearly all of them were long time residents, had lived in the area, and all of them were surprised they had to "re-prove" their eligibility. He could not remember anyone there who had absentee balllot problems like those described with other postings from Lorain. 3) Anastasia P. I deeply appreciate and admire the work you are doing and the sincerity, energy and skills you bring to the process. I am going to assume you are a brilliant organizer and election activist. I had no intention of distracting you, or anyone from your efforts to restore Democracy. I will however, retell a short story. Yesterday afternoon as this posting generated responses I was working with two very brilliant administrators who understand their business inside and out. But the are not IT Wonks. Regardless of ongoing concerns they are having with information exfiltrations, and system oddities, they could not be convinced that there is an extremely high probability they have a digital insider monitoring relatively sensitive data in thier systems. This is a conversation I have had many times, in many places, with many people. They are brilliant at the work they do, but the refuse to believe that with nearly instant and utterly invisible program changes entire functionality issues, and in this case System Access issues can be altered. Please. Rather than spending time and effort on calling laywers activisits and poll officials, and denying "such a letter extists" just ask 20 people in different Ohio Counties to go their BOE, Vote Early, and report back what they see. Wouldn't that be easier. I only knew two people, sent them, and they both reported back problems. And, please. I would love to be proven wrong, and it's very easy to do. 4) To the doubters and the frat-boys on this site. Shame on you. I never made any claims to the factual nature of the story. I deeply believe it is true and am seeking to find out. I have worked in IT in the DC region for many years. I have heard many conversations that have disturbed me. And for many years I would, as most people still do...turned a blind ear. I have a job. I have a family. I have people and clients who depend on me. I also am a patriot and a citizen who believes something has gone very wrong in my homeland. People who I know and love have been purged from roles here in DC during this administration for failures of loyalty and for saying much less than I have said here and elsewhere. In 2001, when Bob Ney, Abramoff, Urosevich and their team locked in on ramming e-voting on our nation I began working, first quietly, now rather loudly to reverse the e-hijacking of our democracy. I appreciate this community has an efforts to "out" trolls, I equally appreciate the efforts of the administration to out non-extremists. The tactics of personal humiliation and frat-boy jockularity exhibited by Bob Johnson and others on this site, frankly, are identical to those used by Team Rove. The difference I suppose is Rove plays for keeps. Including a willingness to destroy national security assets and agents who will not toe the line on their goals. Which is the other subject I cover from time to time. I hope the remainder of this dialogue is focussed on testing the truth of the very credible rumor shared with me. Bob, if you know anyone in Ohio and care about the future. Ask them to vote early, observe the BOE, and then diary it here. I gather that would be too much effort for you?
