Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio
 
 executive summary
 
 Representative John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on 
 the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Democratic staff to 
 conduct an investigation into irregularities reported in the 
 Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report 
 concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress 
 scheduled for January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the 
 votes of the electoral college for president. The following 
 Report includes a brief chronology of the events; summarizes 
 the relevant background law; provides detailed findings 
 (including factual findings and legal analysis); and 
 describes various recommendations for acting on this Report 
 going forward.
 We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in 
 the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a 
 significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these 
 irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousands of votes 
 and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it 
 can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, 
 were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone 
 federal requirements and constitutional standards.
 This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) 
 consistent with the requirements of the United States 
 Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by 
 Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, 
 there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the 
 State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings 
 into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we 
 believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the 
 appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and 
 Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) 
 Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our 
 people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include 
 putting in place more specific federal protections for 
 federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit 
 capability for electronic voting machines and casting and 
 counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed 
 changes to federal and state election laws.
 With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that 
 there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and 
 anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were 
 caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much 
 of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the 
  co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
 First, in the run up to election day, the following actions 
 by Mr. Blackwell, the Republican Party and election officials 
 disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens, 
 predominantly minority and Democratic voters:
 The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented 
 long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of 
 thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters. 
 This was illustrated by the fact that the Washington Post 
 reported that in Franklin County, ``27 of the 30 wards with 
 the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for 
 Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven 
 wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for 
 Kerry.'' Among other things, the conscious failure to 
 provide sufficient voting machinery violates the Ohio 
 Revised Code which requires the Boards of Elections to 
 ``provide adequate facilities at each polling place for 
 conducting the election.''
 Mr. Blackwell's decision to restrict provisional ballots 
 resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, 
 of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and 
 Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwell's decision departed from 
 past Ohio law on provisional ballots, and there is no 
 evidence that a broader construction would have led to any 
 significant disruption at the polling places, and did not do 
 so in other states.
 Mr. Blackwell's widely reviled decision to reject voter 
 registration applications based on paper weight may have 
 resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in 
 time for the 2004 election.
 The Ohio Republican Party's decision to engage in 
 preelection ``caging'' tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 
 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative 
 impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit
 
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 found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation 
 of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from 
 targeting minority voters for poll challenges.
 The Ohio Republican Party's decision to utilize thousands 
 of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and 
 Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of 
 legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but became 
 discouraged the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions 
  were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican 
 officials: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican 
 Party, admitted the challenges ``can't help but create chaos, 
 longer lines and frustration.''
 Mr. Blackwell's decision to prevent voters who requested 
 absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis 
 from being able to receive provisional ballots likely 
 disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 
 voters, particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr. 
 Blackwell's order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA.
 Second, on election day, there were numerous unexplained 
 anomalies and irregularities involving hundreds of thousands 
 of votes that have yet to be accounted for:
 There were widespread instances of intimidation and 
 misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the 
 Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and 
 the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwell's apparent failure to 
 institute a single investigation into these many serious 
 allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty 
 under Ohio law to investigate election irregularities.
 We learned of improper purging and other registration 
 errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens 
 of thousands of voters statewide. The Greater Cleveland Voter 
 Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga County alone 
 over 10,000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as a 
 result of official registration errors.
 There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast 
 for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be 
 inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two 
 precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of 
 over 25% each--accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood 
 in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for 
 president.
 There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities 
 in other counties throughout the state: (i) In Mahoning 
 county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown 
 number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County 
 locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI 
 warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI 
 states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting 
 records of Perry county show significantly more votes than 
 voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than 
 voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one 
 ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded 
 Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received 
 more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential 
 candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker 
 error may have led to little known third party candidates 
  receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had 
 ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; 
 (vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and 
 highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the 
 precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes 
 were recorded for President Bush.
 Third, in the post-election period we learned of numerous 
 irregularities in tallying provisional ballots and conducting 
 and completing the recount that disenfranchised thousands of 
 voters and call the entire recount procedure into question 
 (as of this date the recount is still not complete):
 Mr. Blackwell's failure to articulate clear and consistent 
 standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in 
 the loss of thousands of predominantly minority votes. In 
 Cuyahoga County alone, the lack of guidance and the 
 ultimate narrow and arbitrary review standards 
 significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out of 
 24,472 provisional ballots were ruled invalid, the highest 
 proportion in the state.
 Mr. Blackwell's failure to issue specific standards for the 
 recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of 
 both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses. 
 We found innumerable irregularities in the recount in 
 violation of Ohio law, including (i) counties which did not 
 randomly select the precinct samples; (ii) counties which did 
 not conduct a full hand court after the 3% hand and machine 
 counts did not match; (iii) counties which allowed for 
 irregular marking of ballots and failed to secure and store 
 ballots and machinery; and (iv) counties which prevented 
 witnesses for candidates from observing the various aspects 
 of the recount.
 The voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted 
 that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in 
 numerous counties to provide ``cheat sheets'' to those 
 counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election 
 officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, 
 and how many over and under votes they should calculate to 
 match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing 
 a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.