[Mb-civic] Document Reveals Columbus, Ohio Voters Waited Hours

[Barbara Siomos]

    Document Reveals Columbus, Ohio Voters Waited Hours as
Election Officials Held Back Machines 

    By Bob Fitrakis 
    FreePress.org 
    Tuesday 16 November 2004 

    One telling piece of evidence was entered into the record at
the Saturday, November 13 public hearing on election irregularities and
voter suppression held by nonpartisan voter rights organizations. Cliff
Arnebeck, a Common Cause attorney, introduced into the record the
Franklin County Board of Elections spreadsheet detailing the allocation
of e-voting computer machines for the 2004 election. The Board of
Elections own document records that, while voters waited in lines
ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines
remained in storage and were never used on Election Day. 

    The Board of Elections document details that there are 2886
"Total Machines" in Franklin County. Twenty of them are "In Vans for
Breakdowns." The County record acknowledges 2886 were available on
Election Day, November 2 and that 2798 of their machines were "placed by
close of polls." The difference between the machines "available" and
those "placed" is 68. The nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition
provided legal advisors and observed 58 polling places in primarily
African American and poor neighborhoods in Franklin County.
 
    An analysis of the Franklin County Board of
Elections’ allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern
of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its
Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite
increased voter registration in the city. The result was an obvious
disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican
white affluent suburbs.
 
    Franklin County had traditionally used a formula of one
machine per 100 voters, with machine usage allowable up to 125 votes per
machine. The County’s rationale is as follows: if it takes each
voter five minutes to vote, 12 people an hour, 120 people in ten hours
and the remaining three hours taken up moving people in and out of the
voting machines.
 
    Once a machine is recording 200 voters per machine, 100%
over optimum use, the system completely breaks down. This causes long
waits in long lines and potential voters leaving before casting their
ballots, due to age, disability, work and family responsibilities.
 
    A preliminary analysis by the Free Press shows six suburban
polling places with 100 votes a machine or less, and only one in the
city of Columbus meeting or falling under the guideline.
 
    The legendary affluent Republican enclave of Upper Arlington
has 34 precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200
votes per machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one
machine. By contrast, 39 Columbus city polling machines had more than
200 votes per machine and 42 were over 190 votes per machine. This means
17% of Columbus machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity
while in Upper Arlington the figure was 3%. 

    In the Democratic stronghold of Columbus 139 of the 472
precincts had at least one and up to five fewer machine than in the 2000
presidential election. Two of Upper Arlington's 34 precincts lost at
least one machine. In the 2004 presidential election, 29% of Columbus
precincts, despite a massive increase in voter registration and turnout,
had fewer machines than in 2000. In Upper Arlington, 6% had fewer
machines in 2004 One of those precincts had a 25% decline in voter
registration and the other had a 1% increase. Compare that to Columbus
ward 1B, where voter registration went up 27%, but two machines were
taken away in the 2004 election. Or look at 23B where voter registration
went up 22% and they lost two machines since the 2000 election, causing
an average of 207 votes to be cast on each of the remaining machines. In
the year 2000, only 97 votes were cast per machine in the precinct.
Thus, in four years, the ward went from optimum usage to system failure. 

    Jeff Graessle, Franklin County Election Operations Division
Manager, told the Citizen's Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE) Ohio
voting rights activists that Franklin County does not use a simple 100
votes per machine guideline. Rather, they allocated their machines in
the 2004 election based on a new criteria determined by ACTIVE
registered voters. Hence, an affluent area like Upper Arlington which
has shown a consistent pattern of voters is rewarded with more machines
and fewer losses. A less affluent area of Columbus where voters miss
voting at more elections and may only come out in a hotly tested
election, like Bush-Kerry, are punished with fewer machines.
 
    Of course, there is a direct correlation between affluence
and votes for Bush and below medium income areas and votes for Kerry.
Franklin County, Ohios formula served to disenfranchise
disproportionately poor, minority and Democratic voters under the guise
of rewarding the "likely" voter or active registered voters.