Defendant Blackwell filed a motion on 9/21/06 asking for a more definite statement of the complaint in the KLBNA lawsuit against him.
Yesterday, 10/9/06, the plaintiffs obliged him by filing a 61 page Amended Complaint:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/AMENDEDCOMPLAINTagainstalldefendants.pdfThe Amended Complaint is signed by counsel for the plaintiffs: Cliff Arnebeck, Henry Eckhart, and Robert Fitrakis.
This excerpt (for those who don't want to retrieve the entire pdf) is a summary of the complaint:
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
1. This is a civil rights action in which named Plaintiffs Willis
Brown, Paul Gregory, Miles Curtiss, Matthew Segal, HarveyWasserman, and Gloria
Kilgore, on behalf of themselves and a class of similarly situated individuals, and King
Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association, Ohio Voter Rights Alliance For
Democracy, the League of Young Voters/Columbus, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the
Columbus Coalition for the Homeless seek relief for Defendants’ violation of their
rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Civil Rights Act of 1870 and 1871, 42
U.S.C. § 1983, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3); The Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C § 1971(a)
& (b); Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973(a); 42 U.S.C. §
1988a; the First, Fourth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth and Twenty-Sixth
Amendments to the United States Constitution; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
42 U.S.C. § 2000d; and the Constitution and laws of the State of Ohio arising out of the
conduct of Ohio’s Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and other named and
unnamed Defendants in connection with the November 2, 2004 presidential and
subsequent elections.
2. Specifically, on information and belief, Defendant Blackwell and
those acting in concert with him under the color of law, including but not limited to the
Ohio Republican Party; Robert T. Bennett, Chair, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections
and State Chair, Republican State Central and Executive Committee of Ohio; Matthew
M. Damschroder, Director, Franklin County Board of Elections; Samuel Hogsett,
Technician for Election Systems & Software; and Daniel Bare, former Director,
Clermont County Board of Elections, have conspired to deprive Plaintiffs of their right
to vote and have, in fact, deprived Plaintiffs of their right to vote by undermining the
bipartisan supervision of elections prescribed by Ohio law and avoiding any election
audit so as to permit the following: fraudulent votes to be cast for George W. Bush
(“Bush”) (“election fraud”); the double-counting of absentee ballots (“vote dilution”);
the suppression and/or spoiling of votes in areas that tended to vote for John Kerry
(“Kerry”) and the inflating of vote tabulations in areas that tended to vote for George
Bush (“vote suppression”); the failing to follow Ohio’s law for the proper recount of
votes (“recount fraud”); and other violations of federal and state laws.
3. The election fraud, vote dilution, vote suppression, recount fraud,
and other violations included, but were not limited to, public election officials and
private contractors who conspired with, worked together with, obtained significant aid
from, or whose conduct is otherwise chargeable to some or all the Defendants. Upon
information and belief, the Defendants engaged in, directed others to engage in, and/or
neglected to ensure the proper procedures were in place and followed so that public
election officials and private contractors committed the following acts:
A. Arranged for the use of tens of thousands ballots in high-performance
Democratic precincts that were prepunched for a third-party presidential
candidate so as to create an overvote and disqualification of such vote
when cast for Kerry.
B. Substituted blank ballots or fabricated ballots showing a vote for Bush
for ballots cast by legitimate voters for Kerry.
C. Adjusted vote tabulating machines to tabulate votes cast for Kerry as
votes cast for Bush.
D. Tabulated tens of thousands ballots cast in one precinct for Kerry as
if they were ballots cast in another precinct where, through ballot rotation
in the sequence of the presidential candidates, such votes would be
counted as having been cast for Nader, Peroutka, Badnarik, or for Bush.
E. Directed or executed the withholding of unused ballots in response to
public records requests and/or directed or executed the destruction of
unused ballots from the 2004 election in violation of federal law for the
purpose of concealing evidence of vote tampering.
F. Directed or executed breaks in the bipartisan chain of custody of the
2004 ballots in violation of Ohio law and/or directed or permitted
tampering with ballots by marking ballots on which the voter did not cast
a vote for president with a mark for Bush or by marking ballots in which
the voter cast a vote for Kerry with a vote for another presidential
candidate.
G. Directed or engaged in other illegal practices for the purpose of
recording fraudulent votes for Bush for president and/or discarding votes
for Kerry for president, including, but not limited to, the "remaking" of
ballots as cast by the voter with substitute ballots and adjusting the
substitute ballots to increase the count of votes for Bush and decrease the
number of votes for Kerry.
H. Directed or engaged in the illegal practice of selective counting
absentee ballots twice for partisan advantage.
4. The actions and inactions described above and detailed below were
undertaken pursuant to an ongoing conspiracy among some or all of the Defendants to
disenfranchise and intimidate voters in the class represented by the Plaintiffs and to
dilute their vote.
5. The actions and inactions described above and detailed below
reveal a recurring pattern of voter disenfranchisement and intimidation and vote dilution
directed at the class represented by the Plaintiffs.
6. The actions and inactions described above and detailed below were
taken pursuant to a scheme to deprive the Plaintiffs of fair and honest government and
did deprive the Plaintiffs of fair and honest government.
7. The actions and inactions described above and detailed below have
the direct and proximate effect of depriving the Plaintiffs of their voting rights, including
the right to have their votes successfully cast without intimidation, dilution, cancellation
or reversal by voting machine or ballot tampering, to produce reported results for a
presidential race opposite to that determined by the voters and to continue to produce
dishonest and/or unreliable results in other elections, including the important upcoming
November 7, 2006 election, in which contested races will determine the composition of
Ohio’s apportionment board and Ohio’s congressional representatives.
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