George Orwell couldn't have written it any better.
Giving new meaning to the adjective "Orwellian," just hours after the Ranking Minority Member of the House Judiciary Committee asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate allegations that two electronic voting-machine manufacturers -- Triad Governmental Systems and Diebold, Inc. -- not only tampered with voting machines in Ohio, but also (as to the former, and possibly the latter) instructed county elections officials on how to make a hand recount match a machine recount, countless Ohio counties (all of which are opposed to conducting any countywide recounting) have done exactly what Triad Governmental Systems allegedly instructed Hocking County (OH) elections officials on how to do: match preliminary hand and machine recounts perfectly in order to avoid a state statute requiring a countywide manual recount if a 3% sample of county ballots uncovers even one mis- or un-counted ballot.
Strangely, despite the source of the above complaint being a leading Congressman, the F.B.I. has been slower to respond to these allegations of statewide election fraud than a volunteer firefighter responding to a ham-radio report of local kittens caught in a pine tree.
So, today, The Advocate celebrates those Ohio counties whose elections officials -- having publicly decried the recount effort and expressed their determination to avoid any countywide manual recount -- have done such a "double-plus-good" job on their preliminary recounts that, conveniently, they've made their own dearest wishes come true: Butler, Lucas, Richland, Sandusky, Seneca, and Summit counties, who, all told, recounted well over 23,000 ballots without uncovering even a single mistake in tabulation.
Not even one.
It appears the state's 92,000 undervotes were all in other counties. Or, barring that, that having set aside any such undervotes -- thereby preserving the appearance of professional competence in each county -- these counties found not a single additional undervote to add to the tends of thousands already identified in Ohio. As for overvotes? Forget about it. These counties were perfect on election night. Spot on, all of you!
Of course, in none of these counties were recount observers allowed to stand close enough to elections officials to actually see any of the ballots being counted; every county in which an observer asked to inspect an actual electronic voting machine rebuffed such request; one county, Delaware County, continues to refuse to even conduct a recount; and, as mentioned above, it would be a great surprise if Diebold and Triad representatives hadn't visited all the counties mentioned above, because the presidents of those companies seem to admit that they did -- the only question remaining, then, being whether those "visits" also involved criminal election fraud, as was reportedly the case in Hocking County. Perhaps the elections officials in Butler, Lucas, Richland, Sandusky, Seneca, and Summit counties, none of which welcomed a recount, were less forthcoming regarding their "interviews" with Triad/Diebold representatives than was Sherole Eaton, Deputy Director of Elections in Hocking County?
If the F.B.I. continues to be the only investigative body on the case, the world may never know.
Meanwhile, other Ohio counties conducted recounts with less paranormal results. Whereas the six counties above counted 23,000+ ballots with no errors disclosed, tiny Knox County got a perfect score on its 3%-of-ballots recount, then saw approximately 25 votes change columns in the countywide machine recount. The Advocate wonders about the remaining 27,000+ votes never hand-counted in Knox County, given that a machine recount -- notoriously and spectacularly less effective than a hand recount in finding under-, over-, and un-counted votes -- nevertheless led to 25 ballots being re-identified. [None of which stopped the local newspaper, The Mount Vernon News, from reporting, "Recount Reveals No Change"].
Most Ohio counties have yet to report their recount results, or else have reported their recount results but have not reported (or have not had reported for them) whether those results were the product of an "initial hand" or "final machine" recount. Indeed, The Advocate notes that those counties which have reported "small" changes to their vote totals have been referring, most likely, to the results of their machine recounts, not hand recounts. This suggests that, as noted in this story, many more than the six Ohio counties listed above have had breath-takingly accurate initial hand recounts.
The Advocate further notes an interesting and undoubtedly mysterious coincidence: in every county in Florida which has conducted an initial hand recount, a substantial number of ballots have changed hands, frequently out of very small sample-sizes.
Florida, however, unlike Ohio, is not a contested state this year. And there's no word yet on whether Diebold or Triad employees made special "visits" to the affected counties.
See Related Stories:
(Butler County: “County Finishes Recount,” Middletown Journal, Jessica Brown, 12/16/04)
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(Crawford County: “County Votes Recount: Ballots Certified for Second Time,” The Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum, Lisa Miller, 12/16/04)
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(Delaware County: “County Loses Latest Round in Presidential Recount Row,” Paul Comstock, 12/16/04)
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(Fairfield County: “Ohio Hand Recount Suspended After Exposing Tabulator Malfunction,” Collective Bellaciao, 12/16/04)
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(Hancock County: Hancock County Recount Changes Votes Slightly,” The Toledo Blade, 12/16/04)
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(Hocking County: “In Interview, Green Party Lays Out Hopes for Recount Tampering Civil Lawsuit,” Raw Story, John Byrne, 12/16/04)
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(Knox County: "Recount Reveals No Change," Mount Vernon News, 12/16/04)
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(Licking County: “Libertarian Observer Questions Recount Policy: Request to Inspect Machines Denied,” The Newark Advocate, Kent Mallett, 12/16/04)
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(Lucas County: “Observers Scrutinize Recount of Ohio Votes; Lucas County Done With First Part of Job,” The Toledo Blade, 12/15/04)
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(Muskingum County/Perry County: “Muskingum Election Board Braces for Hand Recount, Perry County to Begin Recount Friday,” Zanesville Times-Recorder, 12/16/04)
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(Richland County: “Richland Vote Recount Goes Forth Smoothly,” Mansfield News-Journal, David Benson, 12/16/04)
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(Sandusky County: "Bush Still Wins," The News-Messenger, 12/15/04)
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(Seneca County: "No Problems With Recount Here," The Advertiser-Tribune, Matt Suman, 12/16/04)
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(Stark County: “Stark County Recount Shows No Change in Outcome,” Canton Repository, 12/15/04)
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(Summit County: “Summit Same in Hand Recount,” Akron Beacon-Journal, Lisa Abraham, 12/16/04)
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