Greene County, Ohio - Unlocked door and recount pictures

For more information go to: democracyunited.com/NDB/

On Monday, December 13 2004, William Pitt wrote the following story:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121404Z.shtml

The Greene County Lockdown
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 13 December 2004

There are people out there who think we are crazy, who think we are bitter-enders, sore losermen, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. We just cannot accept the outcome of a truly legitimate American election, and we are flailing about like pathetic boated fish trying to change what cannot be changed.

Hm. I wonder why. Maybe because of stories like this one, which started popping off late Friday night. This was the story as it first began to develop: On Friday December 10, two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell's office. The Director Board of Elections stated that "all voter records for the state of Ohio were "locked-down," and now they are "not considered public records."

The volunteers were working with voter printouts received directly from Carole Garman, Director, Greene County Board of Elections. Joan Quinn and Eve Roberson, retired attorney and election official respectively, were hand-copying voter discrepancies from precinct voting books on behalf of the presidential candidates Mr. Cobb (Green) and Mr. Badnarik (Libertarian), both of whom had legitimately requested the recount.

One of the goals of their work was to determine how many minority voters were unable to vote or denied voting at the polls. Upon requesting copies of precinct records from predominantly minority precincts, Ms. Garman contacted Secretary of State Blackwell's office and spoke to Pat Wolfe, Election Administrator. Ms. Wolfe told Ms. Garman to assert that all voter records for the State of Ohio were "locked down" and that they are "not considered public records."

Quinn and Roberson asked specifically for the legal authority authorizing Mr. Blackwell to "lock down" public records. Garman stated that it was the Secretary of State's decision. Ohio statute requires the Directors of Boards of Election to comply with public requests for inspection and copying of public election records. As the volunteer team continued recording information from the precinct records in question, Garman entered the room and stated she was withdrawing permission to inspect or copy any voting records at the Board of Elections. Garman then physically removed the precinct book from Ms. Roberson's hands. They later requested the records again from Garman's office, which was again denied.

Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: "A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title." (Source attribution)

By late Saturday night, however, this story had taken even a wackier turn. The records taken from Quinn and Roberson's hands on Friday stood in an unlocked Board of Elections office Saturday morning, apparently overnight. Several observers arrived Saturday morning, noticing cars in the parking lot, and looked for officials in the office, but found nobody in the unlocked building. Law enforcement and media contacts had been alerted and were at the site before County officials arrived. Deputy Director of Elections Lynn McCoy arrived later and stated that all election records were still "locked down" and remained unavailable to the public.after having spent the night unsecured in an unlocked building on the eve of a recount. (Source attribution)

The Dayton Daily News reported:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1212greene.html

Greene County elections board scrutinized
Office containing ballots found unlocked overnight

By Mehul Srivastava

Dayton Daily News

XENIA | Election observers examining Greene County voter records were told Friday the records were to be sealed after Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ordered county boards of election to consider all election-related records as falling within a "canvassing period."

This period usually lasts about 10 days after the election, but was being extended because an official recount is under way in the state, according to Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo.

LoParo said the records are to be treated with the "utmost care" until the recount is over.

The two election observers say they later found the Greene County Board of Elections office unlocked Saturday morning, fueling their suspicions they weren't allowed to examine records that might have been tampered with.

"It is shocking that they would first deny us access, and then leave the records unlocked overnight," said Joan Quinn, a retired lawyer from Sacramento, Calif., an election observer acting on behalf of the Green Party, which asked for a recount of the Ohio presidential vote.

Election board officials returned Saturday afternoon to lock up the building after they were told of the security lapse.

They said that while the building had been left unlocked by mistake, voter records are kept in a separate locked room, and had not been tampered with.

"The records are safe, the ballots are still locked and we can have our computers checked to see if they have been tampered with," said Llyn McCoy, deputy director of the Greene County Board of Elections.

But Quinn and her colleagues say that when they entered the unlocked building, voting machines and voter records had been left in the open.

Quinn said that she and her fellow observer were looking into the low turnout recorded in minority precincts, especially precincts 354, 224, and 355, which recorded voter turnouts in the 50 percent range, while the average for Greene County was 74 percent. While examining those records, she said, they were informed of the "lockdown" order.

"I haven't heard anything about it," said Fred Hall III, president of the Greene County elections board.