Ohio's Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, has finally spoken out.
As many of you are no doubt aware, Blackwell has come under tremendous scrutiny over the last few months due to issues concerning the election in Ohio. Below the fold, I review some of the things he's been criticized for, summarize some questions that were asked of him by the dems on the Judiciary Committee, then turn to some statements he finally came forward with in the last week about the election in Ohio.
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackheart, er BlackwellBlackwell not only serves as the Secretary of State in Ohio, but also served as the Campaign Chair for Bush/Cheney '04. His state was identified as a likely battleground state many months before the election. Many thought Ohio would be the "new Florida" and go a long way toward determining the outcome of the presidential race. Unfortunately, Ohio was the "Florida" of 2004 in more ways than one. Blackwell has been strongly criticized for a number of policies he implemented for the 2004 election, as well as his coordination of the vote count and recount. Here are some key things raised by his critics, but they're by no means exhaustive:
--Under the direction of Blackwell, election officials throughout the state of Ohio improperly told convicted felons no longer incarcerated that they could not vote. This action affected between 7,000 to 21,000 ex-felons who had been released and were legally eligible to vote.
--Blackwell issued an order that county boards were required to strictly enforce the provision that all registrations must be on eighty pound stock paper or should be ruled invalid. This order came within just four weeks of the deadline for registration. Problem is, this paperweight information was not widely known or distributed, and for months, many Board of Elections' web sites encouraged voters to print out an online registration form and mail it in, with no mention of paperweights. Under heavy pressure, Blackwell finally retracted this order shortly before the registration deadline. However, the order may have discouraged registration during a critical registration period. It's also not clear how many registrations were invalidated and whether this was corrected, especially since some election officials reported that they were unaware of the retraction.
--Blackwell also issued an order that anyone who did not receive their absentee ballot could not vote by provisional ballot on election day, contrary to the Help American Vote Act (HAVA). Since it is documented that literally thousands of voters did not receive their absentee ballots prior to election day, this order would've deprived them of their right to vote. Blackwell was sued in Federal court, and a judge granted a temporary restraining order, but not until 2 p.m. on Election Day. Prior to that, anyone who had not received their absentee ballot was simply not allowed to vote.
--Blackwell also issued an order that provisional ballots would only be counted only if they are cast at the correct precinct. This, too, is contrary to the intent of HAVA, and the order came down despite Blackwell'sknowledge of a misinformation campaign in which voters were told that their polling location had changed when it had not. It's especially troubling that the "wrong precinct" was, in some cases just the wrong table in the right room of the right building. In many urban areas, the same location was used for multiple precincts, with one table for one precinct, another table for a second precinct, etc. So if a voter went to the wrong table--easy to do give the poor signage, massive crowding, etc.--then they wouldn't be on the registration list, would therefore be instructed to cast a provisional ballot, but then that ballot was disqualified as being cast in the wrong precinct (i.e., at the wrong table). It is known that thousands of otherwise legitimate votes were lost because of this wrong-precinct rule, and it differentially affected democratic voters since the multiple-table scenario was specific to urban polling places.
--BOE documents from Franklin County (including Columbus) show that at least 68 voting machines were not deployed on election day despite frantic calls from precincts. (Some report that the number is more like 200 machines.) This has not been explained, one official even lied about it under oath, and there is no indication that it's being investigated.
--Ohio election laws require full access to all voting records. Failure to give access is defined by Ohio code as a prima facie case of election fraud. Nonetheless, Blackwell has repeatedly ordered that polling books, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots be "locked down" since election day, even after all counts and recounts had been completed. In some counties, those who wish to see these materials have been told that they will not be available until mid-January, which is of course after the January 6 casting of the electoral votes.
--Blackwell took six weeks to certify the election. States with similar or larger populations took two weeks. This precluded an examination of many of the election records (since Blackwell could claim it was still the "canvassing period"), and effectively ran out the clock on potential investigations into irregularities before the casting and counting of the states electoral votes.
--Blackwell has also failed to enforce his own office's rules for conducting a recount. The recount rules on the Secretary of State web site specifically requires that precincts be selected randomly for the 3% handcount. Yet Blackwell directed BOEs to select precincts however they wanted to, and it turns out that 86 of the 88 counties did not use random selection. Recount rules also require a full hand count if there is a mismatch between the 3% handcount and machine count. There are several known cases of in which there was not a full hand count despite mismatches, yet Blackwell has not enforced this rule.
--Prior to the recount, not only did Blackwell allow Triad and other company officials access to the voting tabulators, there are reports that he directed them to check the machines and suppress all counts other than the presidential race prior to the recount. This is clearly a problem given that one stated reason for the requested recount was concern about security and accuracy of the machines doing the recounting. It's also is stark contrast to Blackwell's order to lockdown election records during the so-called convassing period.
--There are some very clear cases of miscounts, such as in Cuyahoga County, where third-party candidates received as many votes as Kerry in some precincts. This likely resulted from ballots from one precinct being counted on tabulators programmed for another precinct housed in the same room (but which used a different ordering of candidates). In some precincts in the Cincinnati area, there were more votes counted than there were voters. Yet Blackwell certified even these clearly anomalous results without any inquiries.
Letter from the House Judiciary DemsThe democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Blackwell in early December to ask about some of the problems in Ohio. The letter included 34 specific questions on the Warren County lockdown, discrepencies and peculiarties in Perry County, unusual results in Butler and Cuyahoga Counties, spoiled ballets, overvotes in Franklin County, discrepencies in Miami County, machine problems in Mahoning County, machine shortages, invalidated provision ballots, and the directive to reject voter registration forms. A follow-up asked two additional questions about unauthorized access to a voting tabulator prior to the election.
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohblackwellltr12204.pdfhttp://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohblackwellfollowupltr12304.pdfAmong the questions asked were the following:
--Why did Warren County officials exclude members of the press from observing vote counting on election night, claiming an FBI agent had warned of a terrorist threat that was a "10" on a scale of one to ten, but the FBI has no knowledge of such a warning?
--Why did precincts in Perry County apparently record more votes than voters?
--Why did historically Democratic precincts in Cleveland record up to twenty-two times more votes for the Constitution Party Presidential candidate than all third-party candidates combined received in the 2000 election?
--Why did voters in Mahong County report that when they attempted to record a vote for John Kerry their vote was displayed as being cast for George W. Bush?
--Why did there appear to be a shortage of voting machines in traditionally Democratic precincts on election day, causing up to ten hour delays for voters, while there was an apparent surplus of voting machines in traditionally Republican precincts?
Blackwell gave a terse response to that letter and did not address any of the specific questions that were asked. He's repeately brushed off all legitimate questions about the election, has characterized the election as having gone very smoothly, and has recently referred to inquiries about the election as amounting to "harassment."
Blackwell finally speaks out! To his "friends" at least...Blackwell has been very vocal in the last week, however. You see, he has aspirations of running for governor. In support of that effort, he recently gave a talk called "Ethics in Leadership. And the latest news is that he just sent out a letter soliciting funds for his campaign. You might find some of the comments he opens with rather interesting:
"Dear Friend,
As Co-Chairman of Bush/Cheney '04 in Ohio, I want to say thank you for helping deliver the great Buckeye State for George W. Bush.
Without your enthusiasm, generous support and vote, I'm afaird the president would have lost...
...And an unapologetic liberal Democrat named John Kerry would've won.
Thankfully, you and I stopped that disaster from happening!
My friend, not only would that have been a terrible result for Ohio -- it would have been a horrible outcome for the families and taxpayers of America."
(continued)
Here's a link to the full letter in case you feel compelled to donate.
http://rawstory.rawprint.com/105/blackwell_campaign_letter_105.php 
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