Questions of Voter Tampering Cloud Ohio Election Recount

Interview with Susan Truitt, co-founder of the Ohio Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, conducted by Scott Harris

As problems continue to surface related to the Nov. 2nd presidential election in Ohio, a recount of the votes began, requested by the Green and Libertarian parties. On another front, a lawsuit was filed with Ohio's Supreme Court, contesting the validity of the state's election results based on documented cases of voter suppression, miscounts of thousands of votes and a pattern for shortages of voting machines in predominantly African American precincts.

Meanwhile, evidence of sloppy supervision of the election recount -- even possible vote tampering -- was brought to the attention of Rep. John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, who was conducting an ad hoc House Judiciary Committee hearing in Ohio. Deputy director of elections for Ohio's Hocking Country, Sherole Eaton, signed an affidavit that described how a technician with Triad Government Services, the company that wrote the software operating punch card voting machines in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties, dismantled Hocking County's tabulation computer days before the recount began and put a patch on it. But Triad asserts that their employee wasn't tampering with the voting machine, but merely repairing it in advance of the recount.

Voting rights activists, however, point out that it's inappropriate for private companies to have access to voting machinery that could provide unscrupulous parties with an opportunity to manipulate election results. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Susan Truitt, co-founder of the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, who discusses the ongoing effort to investigate the multitude of irregularities reported in the Nov. 2 presidential election in the state of Ohio.

For more information, visit the Alliance website at www.caseohio.org or Free Press, the Ohio-based online investigative magazine at www.freepress.org



Related links:



"Investigating Ohio," by Tim Grieve, Salon.com, Dec. 21, 2004

"Ohio Recount Stirs Trouble," by Kim Zetter, Wired News, Dec. 20, 2004

"Democrats: Gregoire Wins by 8 Votes in Washington State," by Chris McGann and Christine Frey, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dec. 22, 2004

"Count Every Vote," The New York Times | Editorial, Dec. 20, 2004

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