6, 2005, the date that Congress would count the electoral votes, approached. They began to call their cause "election integrity." And those Democrats became more, not less, suspicious as time passed and Jan. They thought "statistical anomalies" explained the Ohio results. There was nothing to it, but some Democrats adopted arguments like that. And we have considerable evidence that that's what took place." And it is this fraud, when you look at the statistical analysis of the vote in Ohio, you see these anomalies, these statistical anomalies, that can only be explained by forms of computer manipulation that would not be conspicuous to election officials, that are a direct attack on the integrity of our election process. The second was the hidden fraud that can only be disclosed by careful investigation. "The first was the open and conspicuous fraud. "There were two categories of fraud in the Ohio election," Cliff Arnebeck, a top official of Common Cause Ohio, told Conyers. Maybe Ohio Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a major villain in Democratic circles, rigged the process in Bush's favor. Maybe the CEO of Diebold, a Bush supporter, manipulated his machines to throw the election for the president.
It was filled with suspicion and speculation about the election. 8, 2004, Conyers held a forumon the Ohio situation. (Democrats were in the minority in the House at the time, so Conyers, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, had limited investigative authority.) John Conyers (D-MI), who started an investigation of the allegations less than one month after the election. Some Democrats in Congress joined the speculation. There was much discussion, amplified on the internet in those pre-social media days, about the machine-maker Diebold and the alleged security flaws in its machines that made them susceptible to hacking. Then came what today would be called the crazies: Some Democrats began to embrace theories that electronic voting machines had secretly switched votes from Kerry to Bush. Then they blamed the GOP for long lines at some polling places. First, they accused Republicans of suppressing the vote, but of course, that wasn't really new - they always accuse Republicans of suppressing the vote. Democratic activists claimed that Bush had cheated. Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what's going on in Washington. In the end, Bush prevailed by more than 100,000 votes in the state. As the count continued, Bush took the lead and won Ohio by roughly 51% to 49%. President?'" But Kerry's lead, if it ever existed, did not last. In the early evening, Robert Shrum, Kerry's top adviser, famously said to the candidate, "May I be the first to say 'Mr. Many Democrats, and some in the press, too, simply assumed that would be the final result. If Ohio chose Kerry, the Democrat would go to the White House.Įarly exit polls showed Kerry with a solid lead in Ohio.
If Ohio went for Bush, he would win a second term. It all came down to Ohio, which had 20 electoral votes. The vote-counting went into the night and into the early morning of Nov.
In a move that has never been fully explained, one "faithless elector" voted for Kerry's running mate, Democratic Sen. Bush won reelection with 286 electoral votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 251. 6, 2005. The 2004 presidential election was a relatively close one.