In 59 divisions in Philadelphia vote tallies had President Obama outscoring Romney by a combined 19,605 to 0? Not a single vote for Romney or even an error? That's worth looking into...
The New Black Panther Party was there, on cue. Standing outside of the 4th precinct in Philadelphia’s 14th ward, there was Jerry Jackson, a member of the leather-loving fringe group who’d signed up to be a poll watcher for the Nov. 6 election.
There was video of the 35th ward, where people were waiting in a school to vote and were walking past a mural of the president. It remained uncovered for hours as people voted.
President Obama received more than 99% of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on election day. In fact, there were a substantial number of precincts where Mitt Romney got exactly zero votes. So how in the world did this happen? Third world dictators don’t even get 99% of the vote. Overall, Mitt Romney received 30.12% of the vote in Cuyahoga County. There were even a bunch of precincts in Cuyahoga County that Romney actually won. But everyone certainly expected that Cuyahoga County would be Obama territory. And in most of the precincts that is exactly what we saw, large numbers of votes for both candidates but a definite edge for Obama.
However, there are more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County where the voting results can only be described as truly bizarre. Yes, we always knew that urban areas would lean very heavily toward Obama, but are we actually expected to believe that Obama got over 99% of the votes in those areas? In more than 50 different precincts, Romney received 2 votes or less. Considering how important the swing state of Ohio was to the national election, one would think that such improbable results would get the attention of somebody out there.
Perhaps if there were just one or two precincts where Obama got more than 99% of the vote we could dismiss the results as “statistical anomalies” and ignore them. But there were more than 100 precincts where this happened in the most important swing state in the nation.
Maybe there is some rational explanation for the numbers, if there is, I would really love to hear it.
What makes all of this even more alarming is that there were reports of voting machine problems during early voting in Ohio. It was being reported that some voters were claiming that they tried to vote for Romney but that the voting machines kept recording their votes as votes for Obama.
Quote:
From Fox News, November 2, 2012
Imagine going to vote for your presidential candidate and pushing the button on a touch-screen voting machine -- but the "X" marks his opponent instead.
That is what some voters in Nevada, North Carolina, Texas and Ohio have reported.
Fox News has received several complaints from voters who say they voted on touch-screen voting machines -- only when they tried to select Mitt Romney, the machine indicated they had chosen President Obama...The voters in question realized the error and were able to cast ballots for their actual choice.
"I don't know if it happened to anybody else or not, but this is the first time in all the years that we voted that this has ever happened to me," said Marion, Ohio, voter Joan Stevens...
Stevens said that when she voted, it took her three tries before the machine accepted her choice to vote for Romney.
"I went to vote and I got right in the middle of Romney's name," Stevens told Fox News, saying that she was certain to put her finger directly on her choice for the White House.
She said that the first time she pushed "Romney," the machine marked "Obama."
So she pushed Romney again. Obama came up again. Then it happened a third time.
"Maybe you make a mistake once, but not three times," she told Fox News
Marion County Board of Elections Director Sophie Rogers, though, said: "My personal opinion is that she hit it too hard."
"We've noticed people just punch on them. She might not have hit the square that she wanted," Rogers said.
Rogers insists there are no problems with the touch-screen machines in Marion County and that after learning of Stevens' complaint she took the machine out of circulation and had it reexamined and recalibrated. She says there was nothing wrong with the machine to begin with.
But in response to the growing number of complaints, the Republican National Committee has sent a letter to election officials in six states -- Ohio, Nevada, Kansas, North Carolina, Missouri and Colorado -- demanding tighter controls on touch-screen machines.
The RNC wants the machines to be re-tested, more technicians added to fix any problems, and verbal reminders given by election workers telling voters to double check their ballots.
Multiple voters from several states wrote Fox News to report problems similar to what Stevens reported.
One voter asked: "I wonder how many voters just hit the 'Cast Ballot' without reading the machine?"
"How can we be sure our votes are not being stolen electronically?" asked another.
One expert warns it can happen.
"Vote jumping complaints have arisen in every election that uses touch-screen voting machines, with the complaints going both ways," said Barbara Simons, author of the new book "Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count?"
Simons, an expert on electronic voting who is on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Commission, said there is good reason for people not to trust the older touch-screen machines.
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