In Violation Of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed Or Missing

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/stories/58328

In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted July 30, 2007.

In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.

Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio's 2004 vote count, because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count anomalies apparently no longer exists.

"The extent of the destruction of records is consistent with the covering up of the fraud that we believe occurred in the presidential election," said Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney representing the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association, which filed voter suppression suit. "We're in the process of addressing where to go from here with the Ohio Attorney General's office. On the one hand, people will now say you can't prove the fraud," he said, "but the rule of law says that when evidence is destroyed it creates a presumption that the people who destroyed evidence did so because it would have proved the contention of the other side."

MORE AT LINK

Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).

[MiniMe]

1. Ken Blackwell should be in jail for his part in this

Thank God he lost the governors race

[EST]

8. G

God...had...nothing...to...do...with...it.

[Double T]

2. The corruption and malfeasance associated with BOTH bushco elections.........

should have every damn American outraged. Every aspect of OUR government has been hijacked by these criminals. The Constitutional Crisis continues on ALL fronts.

[motocicleta]

3. I am so disgusted

This is not the USA in which I thought I lived.

[Richard Steele]

4. K&R

[Pooka Fey]

5. K&R & thanks to Cliff Arnebeck for his efforts.

[mod mom]

6. Cliff is a great guy and a former Republican who saw the light.

I would like to hear what the good Judge Marblely has to say about the blatant disregard for his order to preserve the ballots.

[AndyA]

7. So let me get this straight...

56 counties in Ohio (over half) lost and/or destroyed their 2004 election records. I wonder how many of those counties came in for Bush?

Now if we assume that there was a reason for the destruction of those records, (as in covering up election fraud), we could also assume that the winner for President in those counties was someone other than the official winner. (I'm guessing they were mostly Bush counties, with a few Kerry's thrown in just for the hell of it.)

So, if enough of those counties were for Kerry instead of Bush, it could have tipped Ohio's electoral votes to Kerry...and we all know how important Ohio was in 2004.

Something stinks really bad about this.

And why the hell is Blackwell NOT in jail? Is he facing charges, or have they just allowed him to "get away with it" for the sake of the state?

[mod mom]

9. PLS forward to Keith for coverage:

[e-mail]

[Festivito]

10. A lot of people should be looking at serious jail time. /nt

[TexasLawyer]

11. kick