I will try to summarize the current state of play in the Ohio voter challenges. If an attorney will read this summary and post about any errors in the comments, he would be doing me and any readers a real service. Thanks to the great commenters on my last post for some of these pointers.
There has been an impressive effort to register new voters here. My colleague Deena has been canvassing African-American neighborhoods for months. (By the way, she reports that many felons have the false belief that they cannot vote. In Ohio, however, felons can vote unless they are currently incarcerated. Given the statistics about the proportions of African-Americans who have felony convictions, there may be a substantial disenfranchisement right there.)
According to Mark Niquette of The Columbus Dispatch (see his fine article), the Republican counter was to send a letter to each new registrant. (Gotta wonder: the Republicans have also been registering voters and must have lists of those they registered. Were Republican new registrants sent letters?) If the letter was returned to the sender, the Republicans took that as evidence of possible voter fraud, and filed a challenge. This gambit was clever. It’s likely, however, that this method of finding fraud has a high rate of false negative errors (that is, it would miss cases of true but sophisticated voter fraud) and a high rate of false positive errors (it identifies valid voters as frauds, e.g., because of Post Office delivery errors, moves that lack forwarding addresses, or errors in recording voter addresses). If you have done mail survey research, you know that the cumulative rate of these false positive errors is significant.
Anyway, the Republicans generated an amazing 35,000 challenges this way, which suggests that the denominator of new registrations may be huge. A challenge apparently has to be made by another registered Ohio voter, not an organization, so lists of registrations to be challenged were parcelled out to Ohio Republicans.
A challenge ordinarily leads to a hearing. Summit County is in NE Ohio, and contains Akron (check the county website, which proclaims the region to be ‘The High Point of Ohio’ — you may have to drive through to appreciate their sly humor). The Summit County hearing quickly identified many false positive errors and led the Republicans to withdraw the challenges in embarrassment. Statewide, the Democrats sued (successfully, at least for the moment) to stop the hearings on the grounds that the challengers had insufficient evidence. After all, the individual Republicans were filing challenges about complete strangers based on what headquarters told them about a returned piece of mail.
One of the (many) things being litigated now is what will happen to the challenged voters on Tuesday. (“Challenged voter?” sez Kathi, “That’s you in a nutshell.” Me: “You’re changing the subject.”) The fact that the hearings were stopped didn’t make the challenges go away. We are still in the first inning of this one.
I was under the impression that the tactic was to send out registered letters, which are returned to the sender unless the recipient signs for them, and which require a trip to the post office to collect them unless the delivery person happesns to catch the recipient at home.
good news
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, October 29, 2004
STATEMENT BY OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE J. KENNETH BLACKWELL
COLUMBUS - Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell today issued the following statement regarding challengers at Ohio’s polling places.
“As Secretary of State, it is my responsibility to conduct Ohio’s elections in a manner as open and accessible as possible, consistent with the absolute requirements of integrity and fairness. Ohio’s bipartisan system of election administration has served us well over the years by conducting transparent and balanced elections. Unfortunately, some of our longstanding procedures have come under litigation in the last couple of days. Specifically, suits have been filed against the statutes that allow parties to place challengers in polling places. While I do not agree there is any discriminatory intent or result from these statutes, I do believe a full airing of the issues cannot be completed prior to Tuesday’s election.
“Therefore, I have instructed the Attorney General to offer the following recommendation to the federal courts in Hamilton and Summit counties for resolution of these matters now: All challengers of all parties shall be excluded from polling places throughout the state.
“Following the election, I will institute litigation bringing together all parties to resolve the statutory and constitutional issues so they may be fully litigated and determined once and for all.
“This action will allow Ohio’s dedicated, bipartisan election officials present in each polling place - Republicans and Democrats - to concentrate for the next four days on preparation for this important election without the distraction and uncertainties this litigation brings.”
So all the Republicans who challeneged the “bad” addresses are excluded from polling places? That may effect the price of tea in China, but what the crap does it have to do with this issue? Were the challengers behaving in a way that interrupted polling places? Or is this crazy lawyer-eeze for something that might make sense?
I would be interested in how many false-positives it took to make the Republicans “withdraw the challenges in embarrassment”? Out of the 35,000 did the Democrats come up with 500 or 5,000 false positives?
Out of the 976 in Summit county, 976 were dismissed. But why follow links?
“But why follow links?”
In this case the link requires registration - and if anyone thinks I’m going to register for local newspapers all over the US, they can think again. I haven’t even registered for my local Sydney paper.
If you want to access a site which requires registration, got to www.bothermenot.com, enter the site and it will give you longon names and passwords to use.
MKK
Mary Kay: I think you mean bugmenot.com.
Should that be www.bugmenot.com or is bothermenot an anglo version of the same thing?
There is no bothermenot.com. Mary had the name wrong, that’s all. Also, the description of the service somewhat undersells it: Danny should know that it doesn’t just give you registrations and passwords, but the program will automatically enter the form data for you. This is for any site requiring free registration, so it doesn’t give you access to anything you would otherwise have to pay for.
The most interesting - and bizarre - election story out of Ohio in the last couple of days has actually been the bit about the Kerry elector who is constitutionally ineligible to hold the office. :)
I did indeed have it wrong. That’s what I get for trying to do things from memory when I’m sleep deprived. I thank everyone for the corrections.
MKK
Aphrael is referring to this story. Doesn’t seem to be that big a deal; electors have been substituted before and there’s going to be no challenge this time.
(In Wisconsin, the Democrats’ challenge to Nader was based in part on the fact that he hadn’t named an elector from every Congressional District, as required. I think it was the right thing to deny that challenge, though I wish Nader were not on the ballot.)
Kind of off topic, but did Kerry ever mention what he would do different in the future with Iraq? Or was it just limited to general assurances that he wouldn’t screw up as much as Bush?
Because I’ll trade stupid economic damaging tax hikes for not screwing up in Iraq, but did he mention what “not screwing up” entailed. Or was that more fairy dust :P
What I am hearing here is that the challenges are unlikely to be upheld in any case. Ohio law requires specific knowledge to support a challenge You must actually personally know the person not to be a resident, not have been informed by a party that they didn’t receive a piece of mail — it’s totally different. Furthermore, even if you are NOT resident at the address you registered at, you are STILL eligible to vote so long as you are still an Ohio resident. In other words, if you moved after you registered you can still vote. This further lowers the evidentiary value of the Republican method.
Based on my canvassing/calling experience, though, this particular dirty trick certainly has gotten the minority community pretty riled up here in Cuyahoga county. I think we are going to see pretty massive turnout.
“If the letter was returned to the sender, the Republicans took that as evidence of possible voter fraud, and filed a challenge. This gambit was clever. It’s likely, however, that this method of finding fraud has a high rate of false negative errors (that is, it would miss cases of true but sophisticated voter fraud) and a high rate of false positive errors (it identifies valid voters as frauds, e.g., because of Post Office delivery errors, moves that lack forwarding addresses, or errors in recording voter addresses). If you have done mail survey research, you know that the cumulative rate of these false positive errors is significant.”
There may or may not be a high rate of false positives, we can’t know until we investigate. Which is the entire point of the challenge process. Which is the process you want to circumvent, correct?
As for “…After all, the individual Republicans were filing challenges about complete strangers based on what headquarters told them about a returned piece of mail.” this is a direct analogy of what Democrats are doing in Wisconsin with the ‘same-day’ registration rules. The rules require that a same-day voter be personally vouched for as eligible by someone who personally knows them. Democrats have compiled a list of people who are to be contacted to vouch for voters in each precinct. Having someone meet an ‘eligible voter’ at or near the polls so that you can ‘vouch’ for them is almost certainly outside the meaning of the statute, and very amenable to voter fraud wouldn’t you say?
I vote the folks at Crooked Timber for President. I’ve never seen a place online with more rational thought an analytical skill applied to the world’s problems.
Only thing that would make it better is if Sebastian was added to the line up of bloggers ;)
Congrats for your brand new president, lads!
Congrats for your brand new president, lads!
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review