2004 Election Fraud and Voter Suppresion

Main List: History of Republican Election Fraud, Voter Suppression and Campaign Smears

Last Updated: 10/31/2008

The 2004 Presidential election in Ohio was decided by 118,601 votes. An investigation headed by John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, concluded that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in the Ohio 2004 election. In many cases the intentional misconduct and illegal behavior involved Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

Conyers reported that restrictions on provisional ballots "resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and Democratic voters." ^[2]

Mr. Blackwell’s widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on "paper weight" disenfranchised thousands of newly registered voters in Democratic voter drives. ^[2] ^[3]

The Ohio Republican Party engaged in preelection “caging” tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation and negatively impacting voter turnout. ^[2] ^[3] ^[4]

Ohio officials illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. ^[4]

One in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to disenfranchize them. ^[4]

Evidence of outright election fraud in Ohio indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. ^[4]

Exit poll data in Ohio suggested a Kerry win, but in Republican strogholds official tallies showed improbable disparites as high as 9.5 %. ^[4]

Conyers reported that "the misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters." ^[2]

Lou Harris, the father of modern political polling, said that "Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen." ^[4]

Senator Christopher Dodd stated that "in Ohio, you had a secretary of state who was determined to guarantee a Republican outcome. I'm terribly disheartened." ^[4]

Steven Freeman, a survey expert, said "it was impossible" that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote count in the three critical battleground states could have been due to random error. ^[4]

In 2004, Florida planned to remove 48,000 “suspected felons” from its voter rolls. Many of those identified were in fact eligible to vote. ^[18]

Overall the party investigated the eligibility of more than half a million voters across the country, challenged 74,000 of them directly on election day and had a plan in place to challenge more. ^[17]

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[2]
Article: Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio - House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, Wednesday, January 05, 2005
[3]
Article: None Dare Call It Stolen: Ohio, the election, and America's servile press - Harper's Magazine, Monday, August 01, 2005
[4]
Article: Was the 2004 Election Stolen? - Rolling Stone - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Thursday, June 01, 2006
[17]
Article: Protect This Election - The Nation, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
[18]
Article: Voter Purges - Brennan Center for Justice, Tuesday, September 30, 2008