Ohio election workers convicted of rigging '04 presidential

[Phlegm]

Probably wouldn't have change the outcome but who knows.

CLEVELAND – Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.

Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.
Defense attorney Roger Synenberg has said the workers were following procedures as they understood them.

Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.

Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter did not claim the workers' actions affected the outcome of the election – Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county's recount.

Maiden and Dreamer, who still work for the elections board, face a possible sentence of six to 18 months for the felony conviction. Sentencing is on Feb. 26.

A message left for Elections Board Director Michael Vu was not immediately returned Wednesday. The board released a statement that said its goal is to restore confidence in the county's election progress and pursue reforms in addition to those made since 2004.

[Xaiveir]

If its an icolated incident..it probably would not have affected the outcome. However, if you think this would be an icolated incident, i would call you naive.

[Zanchief]

Both sides committed fraud. Who cares if there's "proof" and "evidence". I assume Democrats did the same thing so I don't really give a shit if people are guilty of rigging an election.

[Arlos]

Especially given the easy "fudgeability" of the new touch-screen voting systems, that have no hard copy trail whatsoever.

-Arlos

[Narrock]

[Zanchief]

Voter fraud isn't important to you Mindia?

[Xaiveir]

Voter fraud isn't important to you Mindia?

Not when his candidate that he voted for, benefits from it.

[Lyion]

There's actually no voter fraud at all here.

Yes, it is sad Mexico has 100 times better election system than we do, but this is just another AP bullshit headline for the not so well informed. Just like this whole story is much ado about nothing, and a kangaroo court type trial.

[Arlos]

Fixing a recount and not actually performing a real recount isn't voter fraud? What planet do YOU live on?

-Arlos

[Lyion]

They didn't FIX anything. It's not like the 1000s of dead people DNC operatives voted with in the same county. That was fraud.

Feel free to explain to me the fraud. These people did what half the other counties here did. They selected counties ahead of time in case of a recount to speed up the process. There was no 'rigging', since the only issue was did they select random counties or not. It has NO BEARING ON ANYTHING.

The jurists deadlocked and a non DNC payrolled judge would've allowed the jury verdict. Talk about a real mockery of justice, that is it. Sorry, you can't mistrial. Work harder. Bollocks.

There's plenty of fraud going on. This isn't it. This is a huge joke and mockery of justice.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/plaindeal ... xml&coll=2

A jury found two Cuyahoga County elections workers guilty Wednesday of charges that they skirted Board of Elections procedures to thwart a countywide ballot recount after the divisive 2004 presidential election.

The jury convicted Kathleen Dreamer, 40, of Cleveland and Jacqueline Maiden, 59, of Richmond Heights on one felony and one misdemeanor each.

They each had been charged with seven counts and were exonerated on five apiece, including all charges that they knowingly conspired to break the law and violate their duties. Instead, they were found guilty of being criminally negligent.

The jury cleared a third co-worker, 54-year-old Rosie Grier of Cleveland, on all charges.

Dreamer and Maiden did not show any emotion, but their lawyers said afterward that they were distressed at the verdicts, which the lawyers said were clear indications of jury confusion.

Maiden's lawyer, Robert Rotatori, said the result was "obviously a compromise verdict," because jurors had announced a hopeless deadlock in a message to Common Pleas Judge Peter Corrigan about two hours earlier. The judge ordered them to work harder.

"I don't think even the jury is sure of what it's done," Rotatori said. The defendants will appeal, he added.

Kevin Baxter, the Erie County prosecutor brought in to try the case, said he was pleased with the verdict.

Baxter investigated complaints and brought the charges because of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason's position as the Board of Elections' lawyer.

Some Internet bloggers and others have complained ever since the 2004 general election that backroom shenanigans at the county Board of Elections rigged results to throw Ohio's 20 electoral votes - and the presidential election - to President Bush.

Prosecutors have assured the public that nothing the board staff did affected the outcome of any race. The county recount actually showed Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, gained a net of 23 votes, yet Bush won the state by more than 118,000 votes. The widely publicized misconduct eroded public confidence in elections, Baxter and others charged.

At issue was how the board and its staff conducted a miniature "sample" recount of ballots to test the validity of tabulating machines after third-party candidates demanded a countywide vote recount.

Under state law, the board must randomly select precincts representing 3 percent of the county's votes and count the ballots in those precincts by hand, in front of a crowd of nominally nonpartisan witnesses. If the hand and machine counts match, a countywide machine recount would follow. That would avert a hand recount of all 600,000-odd votes - a tedious, costly and labor-intensive exercise that could have put the county under humiliating national scrutiny.

The board staff rigged the sample count because

the precincts actually were secretly selected in advance of the closely watched recount, Baxter said. That ensured the 3 percent sample included only precincts whose hand and machine counts matched.

The defendants insisted they followed long-established methods that Mason's office approved.

The board has since enacted reforms meant "to fully restore the public's confidence in the election process in Cuyahoga County," a spokesman said in a written statement after the verdict.

[Narrock]

You're wasting your time Lyion... let them be ostrich's and believe only what they want to believe, hear only what they want to hear, and see only what they want to see.

[Eziekial]

Actually, i read it and want to thank Lyion for posting it. Figured it was something along those lines. Poor women being tried for stupidity when we have pedophiles running around playing in middle school.

[brinstar]

lol adults condoning cheating

love it

[Evermore]

You're wasting your time Lyion... let them be ostrich's and believe only what they want to believe, hear only what they want to hear, and see only what they want to see.

described yourself perfectly.

that is a good explantion Lyion.