New Report: Thousands of Black Votes went Uncounted in Ohio -- 2000

• Black Vote was 3 Times More Likely Not to be Counted. Same Punch Card System is still in use. 

Presidential votes from Ohio's predominantly black precincts went uncounted at three times the rate of those from predominantly white precincts in the 2000 election, according to a newspaper analysis. The prime suspect for the disparity? Punch-card ballots. The Dispatch conducted the first precinct-by-precinct computer analysis that combined Ohio voting results from 2000 with racial data from that year's U.S. Census. The objective was to examine the state's 94,569 residual, or uncounted, presidential votes. In areas with the highest population of blacks, the rate of ballots with no votes counted for president was about 5 percent, the analysis shows. For the rest of Ohio precincts it was less than 2 percent. The disparity is even more glaring if you hone in on the parts of Ohio that had the highest 10 percent of uncounted ballots. The odds of a predominantly white precinct making that list were 2 out of 33. But for predominantly black precincts, it was 2 out of 3. Every one of those black precincts used punch-card ballots in 2000 -- and plans to again this year. A precinct is considered "predominantly" black or white if either race makes up at least 90 percent of the voting-age population. This pattern could be repeated on Nov. 2. [more] and  [more ]

• A federal judge has postponed trial until after the election in a 2002 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that seeks to declare Ohio's punch-card system unconstitutional. The ACLU said the aging machines are too error prone and violate the voting rights of blacks, who are more likely to live in punch-card counties.All the predominantly black precincts are in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery and Summit counties. Only Franklin County uses electronic ballots; the rest use punch cards, which are in 68 of Ohio's 88 counties.  
• Promises to modernize the way that Ohioans vote fell by the wayside because of legislative roadblocks and security concerns about electronic voting. In the past four years only one county, Sandusky, has gotten rid of punch-card ballots, which means the portion of Ohioans using them this year is only slightly lower than the 74 percent in 2000.Electronic-voting devices with voter-verifiable paper audit trails are supposed to be in place by the 2006 elections.
• Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell acknowledges he must run a voting system that he once said "invites a Florida-like calamity." But he said Ohioans can still trust the election outcome because of better training for poll workers and an extensive voter education campaign. [more ]
• Bush's victory in Ohio four years ago cannot solely be attributed to uncounted votes because his margin was about 167,000, well above the 94,569 untabulated votes. Blackwell, Asher and others have predicted the December 2000 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court settling the contentious presidential race could have ramifications this year. The justices cited concerns about constitutional "equal protection" rights because of variations in the way Florida conducted its recount. Some have contended that the same reasoning might apply to variances in the way votes are counted.