Is the Ohio Secretary of State multi-tasking or just feathering his own nest?
Kenneth Blackwell's conflict of interest casts election results in doubt
by Renee in Ohio
Okay, about Kenneth Blackwell and the pattern of behavior demonstrating that he is not a person we can trust to fairly oversee an election or a recount.
I first became aware of Blackwell and the reasons he needed to be watched closely when I read the Free Press article, Diebold, electronic voting, and the vast right-wing conspiracy.
O?Dell?s fund-raising letter followed on the heels of a visit to President Bush?s Crawford Texas ranch by ?Pioneers and Rangers,? the designation for people who had raised $100,000 or more for Bush?s re-election.
If Ohio?s Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has his way, Diebold will receive a contract to supply touch screen electronic voting machines for much of the state. None of these Diebold machines will provide a paper receipt of the vote.
Diebold, located in North Canton, Ohio, does its primary business in ATM and ticket-vending machines. Critics of Diebold point out that virtually every other machine the company makes provides a paper trail to verify the machine?s calculations. Oddly, only the voting machines lack this essential function.
State Senator Teresa Fedor of Toledo introduced Senate Bill 167 late last year mandating that every voting machine in Ohio generate a ?voter verified paper audit trail.? Secretary of State Blackwell has denounced any attempt to require a paper trail as an effort to ?derail? election reform. Blackwell?s political career is an interesting one: he emerged as a black activist in Cincinnati supporting municipal charter reform, became an elected Democrat, then an Independent, and now is a prominent Republican with his eyes on the Governor?s mansion.
The rest of the article is certainly worth reading, but a lot of you are probably already aware of the concerns about Diebold machines, and the political leanings of the owners of the major voting machine companies. As you can see in the excerpt above, at least as early as February 2003 Kenneth Blackwell had declared his intention to give Diebold a contract. On the Electronic Frontier Federation web site, you can link to the following documents, regarding efforts to stop Blackwell from allowing unverifiable, paperless electronic voting machines.
Amicus Brief filed by the EFF, Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections, the Verified Voting Foundation and Voters Unite!, August 5, 2004, PDF 163k
Motion for Leave to File Amicus Brief, August 5, 2004, PDF 21k
Notice of Appearance, July 27, 2004, PDF 22k
Declaration of Cindy Cohn in Support of Motion of Leave to File Amicus Brief, July 26, 2004
Thankfully, through the persistence of groups like the Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections, Blackwell eventually backed down from his efforts to get new Diebold machines installed in Ohio counties, but, undaunted, he continued to explore different ways to disenfranchise voters, as you can see in this October 3 post on Blog for America.
At a meeting of area activists a week after the election, State Senator Teresa Fedor commented that Kenneth Blackwell had spent the month before the election on a bus tour in support of Issue 1, the so called "same-sex marriage ban". Here is a statement Fedor made on November 3:
Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor said today: "There was trouble with our elections in Ohio at every stage. It's been a battle getting people registered to vote, getting to the ballot on voting day and getting that vote to count. There is a pattern of voter suppression; that's why I called for Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell's resignation more than a month ago. Blackwell, while claiming to run an unbiased elections process, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. Additionally, he was the spokesperson for the anti-business, anti-family constitutional amendment 'Issue 1,' and a failed initiative to repeal a crucial sales-tax revenue source for the state. Blackwell learned his moves from the Katherine Harris playbook of Florida 2000, and we won't stand for it."
An article here (you need to scroll down a bit) discusses the connection between the Bush campaign and Issue 1
Bush Campaign Connected to Ohio Ban Amendment
He told the Cincinnati Enquirer September 14 the name of the person in the Bush campaign who he said in an early August letter to GOP faithful had asked him to do surrogate work on marriage in Ohio for the campaign--Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlmen.
...
The August letter says, ?And while, yes, I am running for governor in 2006 I am not overlooking 2004 and President Bush?s re-election.?
?The President?s campaign has asked me to help with a state DOMA ban amendment effort and I have agreed. I am working closely with state and national leaders to protect and defend the sanctity of marriage. No one is spending more time communicating with the key elements of the GOP base on behalf of the president than am I,? he continued.
The intent of Blackwell?s letter is to portray himself as the most conservative of the three gubernatorial candidates and most worthy of GOP support because of his stands on fiscal and social issues.
The other two GOP gubernatorial contenders are Attorney General Jim Petro and Auditor Betty Montgomery.
This Sunday Herald piece addresses how Issue 1 helped Bush, as well as highlighting Blackwell's conflict of interests
Elsewhere in Ohio, other forces aided Bush. The decision to put the same-sex marriage initiative on the ballot papers was taken by Ohio?s Republican secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell, an elected official also in charge of election rules that seemed to change from day to day, told his colleagues that the Bush campaign had specifically asked for it to be included. What the party missed, the churches didn?t: 2.5 million inserts on what was at stake over the gay marriage issue was sent out in church bulletins. Ohio overwhelmingly voted to ban same-sex marriage or anything approximating to it. Green believes fervent support for the same-sex amendment may have caused turnout to rise in certain counties by up to 4%: enough to tip the election Bush?s way in vital states.
The voice of Ohio's Secretary of State was heard by Ohio citizens in a recorded phone message, urging them to get out and vote for Issue 1.
Kenneth Blackwell's actions in his multiple roles as Ohio Secretary of State, co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio, and spokesman for Issue 1 need to be investigated now. I believe the information I presented above should be sufficient to cast doubt on Blackwell's ability to oversee a fair election in Ohio, so why should we take the election results he has certified at face value?
You can read more about Blackwell's history with the Republican Party in this Wikipedia entry.
This page has information on organizations to which he belongs, but it does not mention that he is one of the "experts" at the National Center for Policy Analysis, which is a "conservative think tank" pushing for privatization of Social Security.
Posted by Hannah at January 3, 2005 05:22 AM