Elections board's hot-selling records
Presidential-race reports in demand
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Mark Naymik
Cleveland Plain Dealer Politics Writer

Everybody wants a piece of Cuyahoga County's presidential election.

High school students and college professors. Civil rights lawyers and self-appointed election activists. Politicians and Average Joes. Reporters from community newspapers to the Los Angeles Times. 

Since Nov. 2, hundreds of requests to review, copy, inspect and even manipulate records related to the election have flooded the board's offices. Many of the requests are testing Ohio's open records law, the patience of elections officials and the will of the people submitting them.

On the simple end, two high school students in Atlanta, working on a class project, asked in an e-mail for a breakdown by precinct of the number of voting machines distributed on Election Day.

Initiating a more complex search, a Toledo law firm sent a six-page request, seeking everything from samples of punch cards used in each precinct to a list of all people with access to counting machines.

Most of the people behind the requests are trying to examine mistakes made by election officials, intentional or not.

But some requests are off-target, such as those seeking information about electronic voting machines; Cuyahoga County uses paper-ballot machines.

A few requests have been so comprehensive or broad that, if interpreted liberally, would require officials to turn over thousands of papers with little relevance to the election.

"Some people are looking for a smoking gun," said board director Michael Vu, referring to fears that election officials manipulated the results.

Harvey Wasserman, an environmental activist and independent journalist from Columbus, wants every piece of paper, e-mail and fax pertaining to any discussion this year about the board's voting system. It's just one of 23 items listed on his request.

Working on behalf of the progressive political group Alliance for Democracy, Wasserman mailed his request to the state's 88 election boards. It includes an unusual appeal: permission to hook up his computer to the boards' computers and copy records.

Election officials have not acquiesced.

Cuyahoga's board has assigned three staff members to work full time gathering documents. Under Ohio's open-records law, the board has to respond to all requests for public documents. But interpreting what people want, Vu said, has been difficult at times.

Vu said the board staff goes out of its way to explain the voting system and voting process, but that often "generates more requests."

Among the most persistent and exhausting voter advocates, according to Cuyahoga County officials, is Vicki Lovegren, a mathematics professor at Case Western Reserve University.

Lovegren's detailed requests and addendums forced elections officials to use a computer spreadsheet to track her requests.

Lovegren also asked the board to give her some information in a specific computer format, something the board officials have been reluctant to do.

"We cannot act as a consulting group for persons, regardless of whether they represent a political party, or an interested organization," said Jane Platten, a board administrator managing the requests. "Any data in the formats we are using can be further manipulated by the requestor."

Lovegren's frequent e-mails and calls suggest that she's suspicious of election officials.

"If I don't get these items tomorrow, I have to conclude that the board is hiding something," she wrote in one e-mail.

Officials allowed Lovegren to sit six feet behind the officials inspecting ballots during Thursday's recount. She was one of several observers ensuring the recount proceeded without controversy. Lovegren, who wanted to sit beside the officials, used small binoculars to view the process from her chair.

Lovegren, whose self-appointed investigation focuses largely on errors in the handling of provisional ballots, said in an interview that she wants to identify problems in the voting system.

"We are watching closely what the election board does, and that will give voters a greater sense of confidence that their vote will count," she said.

Vu and other officials say they are trying to accommodate Lovegren. They held a special evening meeting recently with her about the requests. And, after Lovegren refused to believe that the vote tabulators didn't produce the type of detailed reports she requested, the board conducted a training session on the machines for her and others.

Lovegren said she still believes the board was "playing dumb" because she eventually received reports to satisfy her request.

Vu and other officials admit that mistakes by poll workers have contributed to errors on Election Day but say the problems were not widespread and had little impact on the results.

Still, groups like the nonpartisan Votewatch, which is auditing Ohio's election results, want to pinpoint what errors occurred.

"We are not here to overturn an election," Said Steve Hertzberg, project manager of Votewatch. "We want to find out where the flaws are so we can fix these things."

Votewatch, which has asked for records from boards across Ohio, praised Cuyahoga County for its access to information. Hertzberg said the board responded fully, though not as quickly as he wanted, to the group's 22-item request.

Despite the avalanche of records requests, Vu said he welcomes the scrutiny.

"It will be a good way for us to refine our process," he said.