The BRAD BLOG : Ohio

Art Levine: 'Salon's shameful six' --- states where vote suppression could cost voters their voice --- and Democrats the election --- in 2006

Salon's Election Integrity Coverage Takes A Turn For The Better

but it couldn't have got much worse!

By Winter Patriot on 8/15/2006 7:55pm PT

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Art Levine's new piece at Salon raises their election integrity bar quite a bit --- not a difficult task considering where that bar has been lately.

Prior to the 2004 "election", Salon's coverage was generally quite good; since then it's been dismal, thanks mostly to some outrageous smear pieces from Farhad Manjoo. In fact, Salon's coverage has been so dreadful that the site has been referred to in some quarters as "Saloon", which of course rhymes with "buffoon", which gives me a good way to remember "Manjoo", whose name just wouldn't stick in my frozen brain any other way.

But let's not dwell on those sad times.

Levine's article, "Salon's shameful six", looks at six states --- Arizona, Indiana, California, Missouri, Ohio and Florida --- where vote suppression could cause serious problems in 2006.

If you're not a Salon subscriber, you'll have to watch a short ad to read the whole article. I did; it was well worth the time and effort. But just in case you don't believe me, we have a few short excerpts, below the fold.

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Article Categories: Ohio, Florida, California, Indiana, Arizona, Election 2006, Missouri

OHIO: Bob Ney Quits Race!! Soon-To-Be-Indicted GOP Influence Peddler, HAVA Author, Maintains He Has Done Nothing Wrong

Had Vowed To Fight On, Even If Indicted; Now Says He's Quitting For The Good Of His Family

Flip-Flopper?? ... In the meantime, with DeLay and Ney gone, Tom Feeney is the only remaining congressman to have accompanied Jack Abramoff to Scotland!

By Winter Patriot on 8/7/2006 9:57am PT

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to ABC News and AP: Bob Ney Won't Seek Re-Election

COLUMBUS, Ohio Aug 7, 2006 (AP)— U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, dogged by an influence peddling probe in Washington, will not seek re-election, state Sen. Joy Padgett said early Monday.

AP writer Joe Danborn has some other details, including:

The six-term congressman from Heath in central Ohio had insisted he would not resign even if indicted over his dealings with now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In his first primary test in a decade, Ney won 68 percent of the vote May 2 against a little-known opponent.

However, he faced a tough challenge in November from Democrat Zack Space, who had made the Justice Department's investigation into Ney a focus of his campaign.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has more, including some quotes from an exclusive interview with Ney: Ney drops out of fall race

Ney has not been charged with a crime, and he insists he did nothing wrong. But his former chief of staff, Neil Volz, who left to join Abramoff's team, pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to use gifts and trips to influence Ney's official activities. Volz said he and other Abramoff associates provided Ney and members of his staff with free or reduced-price trips to England, Scotland and the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz.

Who went on that trip to Scotland? Let's see ...

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Article Categories: Ohio, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, Tom Feeney

CNN's Lou Dobb's: Monumental Failure of Diebold In Ohio

By John Gideon on 7/28/2006 9:07am PT

Dobbs has this to say (tongue in cheek) when talking about Diebold's denial of any problems while there is evidence of vote tallying problems, "A minor, minor consideration when one is holding an election is to be able to count the vote."

A written transcript follows...

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Lou Dobbs, Ohio

Cuyahoga Co., Ohio Primary Was A Disaster

Just Published Report Condemns The Election Director and His Top Assistant

County Elections Board Decides, On a 2 To 2 Vote, To Keep The Director In His Job

By John Gideon on 7/21/2006 8:46pm PT

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

According to an article in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer the recent Cuyahoga County primary fiasco was the result of widespread dysfunction in the county's election offices, where officials ignored specific warnings of the looming calamity, according to a report also released today that blames election chief Michael Vu and deputy chief Gwen Dillingham.

According to the paper:

In the 394-page report, a three-member panel concludes its investigation of the flawed May 2 primary with descriptions of breakdown after breakdown at every level of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The problems included poorly trained poll workers, too few workers, the rehiring of poll workers with histories of poor performance, a lack of crucial supplies, error-filled and ambiguous manuals for poll workers, a careless or reckless disregard for security of the voting machines, and the refusal to accept help from outsiders with expertise.

The dysfunction was made worse by a rushed changeover from punch-card voting to electronic machines.

"Director Vu and [Deputy Director] Dillingham effectively ordered workers to do the impossible, or nearly impossible, with inadequate resources," the report says. "This is an across-the-board failure to plan and manage the first countywide endeavor in electronic voting."

The panel found that even when presented with 13 warnings of potential crises four months before the election, Vu forged ahead. In June, after most of the 13 predicted problems came to pass, Vu "had yet to grasp the enormity of the issues. . . . During a recent interview with panel members he said, "There's not much that I would change at all."

In a companion article the Plain Dealer reports on the 13 warnings and gives some examples:

Scanning machines might be unable to read thousands of absentee ballots.

Votng machine memory cards might not get to the election headquarters for counting.

Election workers might be unable to operate the machines.

Vu's system for counting votes might break down.

All of that came to pass.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, Ohio, Election 2006

VIDEO - Brad Friedman and RFK on Court TV's Catherine Crier Live!

Tape of Live Appearance Discussing Election Integrity, Ohio 2004, E-Voting Crime 2006...

By David Edwards on 7/20/2006 7:42pm PT

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

NOTE FROM BRAD: I'm still out on the road, will be for a while, and thus unable to check into the net with much frequency! Not getting all of my email either because of it, so my apologies. Thanks Dave for getting this up! More when I am able to check back in from a location with net access and enough time to get caught up-ish.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, ES&S, Election Irregularities, RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio, BRAD BLOG, Sequoia Voting Systems, UniLect, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Catherine Crier

COURT TV's Catherine Crier on Electoral Crisis: 'A Full Frontal Attack on Democracy'!

Devasting Video Editorial on the 'Unprecedented Scandal Threating to Turn us into a Banana Republic'

'If we are willing to send troops around the world to secure freedom at the ballot box, shouldn't we fight for that right here at home?'

By Brad Friedman on 7/7/2006 4:52pm PT

I missed this a week or so ago when it originally aired, but caught it just now (hat tip Mary Macelveen).

Catherine Crier offered a devasting editorial recently on Court TV in regard to election integrity. Her piece was spurred by RFK's Jr.'s Rolling Stone exposé on the theft of the '04 Presidential Election, but covers a panoply of current threats to our electoral system --- described as "a full frontal attack on Democracy" --- including guys like Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell, convicted RNC/White House phone-jammer James Tobin and the Electronic Voting Machine Menace of Diebold and other private companies who have usurped our public election system.

Links to the highly-recommended video editorial titled "Defending Democracy: Can we promote democracy in Iraq while our own is under attack?" are at the bottom of this article, courtesy of David Edwards.

Here's a selection of extremely choice quotes from Crier's report...

Is this not an attack on Democracy? If 357,000 Americans were killed by al Qaeda, we would call that an attack on democracy and freedom. The press would headline such an event and it would shape our policies for decades to come. In a democracy, when 357,000 votes are effectively killed at the voting booth, what do you call it?
...
The national character of this scandal is unprecedented and threatens to turn us into little more than a banana republic, where candidates appear on the ballot in name only because the election has already been determined.

If we are willing to send our troops around the world to secure freedom at the ballot box for others, shouldn't we fight for that right here at home?

Partisanship has no place in this battle. For the sake of democracy...for the sake of America...it is time all citizens demand the sanctity of our election process.

With the November elections almost upon us, we haven't a moment to lose.

It looks like American democracy has yet another new champion in the mainstream media!

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

...CONTACT...
Email: Crier Live

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, RFK Jr., Election 2004, J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio, Florida, Election Reform, Election 2000, Catherine Crier

Staffers of Ohio's Soon-to-be-Indicted Rep. Bob Ney All Quit on Same Day...

HAVA Author, Abramoff Buddy, Diebold's Best Friend in Congress, Apparently in Dieb Dieb Doo Doo...

By Brad Friedman on 7/1/2006 7:38pm PT

Just one of the many recent, yet notable, items I was unable to cover over the past week...

On Thursday, Roll Call reported that all three of the major staffers for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), the lead author/co-sponsor of the disastrous Help America Vote Act (HAVA), are running for the hills.

The departures are described as "the latest sign that Ney’s legal and ethical troubles stemming from the Jack Abramoff scandal are growing worse with each passing day."

Josh Marshall covered the exits of his "troika" --- his Chief of Staff, Legislative Director and Communications Director --- all scramming on the same day.

We first referred to Ney as "the soon-to-be-indicted" back in January when we published our exposé connecting the dots between Ney, Abramoff, Diebold, HAVA and Ney's even-more-former chief of staff, David DiStefano, who became Diebold's main congressional lobbyist. That exposé has been wholly ignored by the mainstream media ever since. (Except for Matt Taibbi who referenced the info, but without attribution, in an April Rolling Stone piece on Abramoff.)

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Ohio, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff

Election/Media Reform Toon of the Moment...

By Brad Friedman on 6/21/2006 2:10pm PT

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Article Categories: RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio, Election Reform, Toons

Congresswoman 'Apologizes' for Not Taking Allegations of Stolen 2004 Election Seriously!

Was it Stolen? 'Only Answer is Yes,' says Schakowsky who Claims DCCC to Announce Steps Soon to Avoid 'Repeat Performance'

EXCLUSIVE: Complete Text of Prepared Remarks from today's 'Take Back America' Conference...

By Brad Friedman on 6/14/2006 6:54pm PT

I just got off the phone with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) who reportedly wowed 'em a few hours ago during her speech (posted in full below) on the closing afternoon of the "Take Back America" conference being held in Washington D.C.

In her remarks, Schakowsky apologized for "not taking seriously enough the allegations that the 2004 election was stolen." She now feels it was, and claims that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) will be launching an initiative. From today's speech:

I apologize for not taking seriously enough the allegations that the 2004 election was stolen. After reading Bobby Kennedy's article in Rolling Stone, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?", I am convinced that the only answer is yes. He documents how 357,000 Ohio voters, the vast majority Democrats, "were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted...more than enough to shift the results." Watch for the DCCC to take some very public steps in the near future to ward off a repeat performance. In the meantime, there needs to be a citizens' effort starting now to assess the machines, the ballots, the registration process within each and every election jurisdiction in each and every swing district and state, in the case of Senate races. Where the situation looks perilous, go to the media, raise a stink, demand changes. This is a great project for the many of you who have been diligently working to guarantee fair and accurate elections.

Raise a stink? Can do. So can you! Sign Velvet Revolution's petition declaring "No Confidence" in the Busby/Bilbray race!

(Hat tip to my buddy Peter B. Collins, who is in DC to cover the conference, for his quick phone call alert after Schakowsky's speech earlier this afternoon!)

Schakowsky's prepared statement from today's Take Back America conference speech follows in full...

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Article Categories: RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio, Election Reform

VIDEO - Colbert Trusts His Gut More Than Kennedy's Election 'Facts'

By David Edwards on 6/13/2006 11:59am PT

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

Stephen Colbert had Robert Kennedy Jr. as a guest on last night's edition of the Colbert Report. With the show's more relaxed interview format, Kennedy was able to give a quick but meaningful overview of how Republican officials may have stolen the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio

NY Times' Bob Herbert: 'Kerry Almost Certainly Won Ohio'

By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2006 12:55pm PT

In following up on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recent piece in Rolling Stone offering reams of evidence suggesting that the 2004 Presidential Election was most likely stolen, NY Times columnist Bob Herbert op/eds today:

Kerry almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots.

Since the op/ed at the Times is available to 'Times Select' members only (a 14 day trial is available,) you can get a few more excerpts from RAW STORY instead.

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Article Categories: RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio

AP: Diebold Lobbyist Donated $10,000 to Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell...

By Brad Friedman on 6/10/2006 1:36pm PT

One might have thought that Ohio's blatantly partisan state election administrator, Republican Sec. of State and now-gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell would have hit his ethical rock-bottom long ago. But think again...

COLUMBUS (AP) --- Forty-nine of the 85 people who this year have given Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell the maximum $10,000 allowed an individual donor have done so since May 2. Members of Cincinnati financier Carl Lindner's family led the way by combining for $90,000. The maximum-donor list also includes Mitch Given, who is a registered lobbyist for Diebold Election Systems, one of the vendors of voting machines for election boards in Ohio.

In related recent news concerning the morally and ethically bankrupt Blackwell:

Yesterday he refused to recuse himself from administering his own election against Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland in November's upcoming gubernatorial race.

A month or two ago it was revealed that he had purchased stock in Diebold around the time he was deciding which voting systems would be used in Ohio (suprise, Diebold was one of the winning bidders!)

We'd list more, but we'd hate to crash your system with the impossibly long download of crimes that Blackwell has committed against the very voters that he was elected to serve.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, J. Kenneth Blackwell

Blackwell Refuses to Recuse Himself From Administering His Own Election...

Spokesman Carlo LoParo Hates America

By Brad Friedman on 6/9/2006 2:43pm PT

Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland held a presser yesterday demanding that his opponent, J. Kenneth Blackwell recuse himself from administering his own election contest this November.

Predicably, the rule-of-law-impaired Blackwell declined to do so. True to his nature, obnoxious Blackwell spokesperson, Carlo LoParo showed his usual disdain for Ohio's voters when he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in response: "Their contentions are absurd. Someone else should administer the election? How can they even stand up there with any credibility and talk about that stuff?"

Blackwell and LoParo. Perfect together. God save the Buckeye State.

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Article Categories: J. Kenneth Blackwell

NY TIMES OP/ED: Ohio & Florida Try to Shut Down Voter Registrations

'Blackwell Should Hand Over Reins of Election'

By Brad Friedman on 6/7/2006 2:02am PT

From NY Times' Op/Ed Wednesday...

Florida's Legislature, like Ohio's, is controlled by Republicans. Throughout American history both parties have shown a willingness to try to use election law to get results they might otherwise not win at the polls. But right now it is clearly the Republicans who believe they have an interest in keeping the voter base small. Mr. Blackwell and other politicians who insist on making it harder to vote never say, of course, that they are worried that get-out-the-vote drives will bring too many poor and minority voters into the system. They say that they want to reduce fraud. However, there is virtually no evidence that registration drives are leading to fraud at the polls.

But there is one clear way that Ohio's election system is corrupt. Decisions about who can vote are being made by a candidate for governor. Mr. Blackwell should hand over responsibility for elections to a decision maker whose only loyalty is to the voters and the law.

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Article Categories: J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio, Florida

Frist Found in Violation of Election Law, Noe Pleads Guilty to Illegally Funneling $45k to Bush/Cheney '04 Re-Election Campaign

Just Another Day in the Republican Culture of Corruption...

By Brad Friedman on 6/1/2006 2:55pm PT

The astounding amount of corruption now catching up with the GOP is almost impossible to keep up with at this point. (Especially when your humble blogmaster is on the road supposedly to be enjoying a few days of R&R...How's that going, Brad?...Yeesh...)

Two stories of note from today and yesterday...

YESTERDAY: Thomas Noe, former head of the Lucas County, OH GOP and a "Pioneer" level (responsible for more than $100,000 in contributions) fundraiser for Bush/Cheney '04 has pled guilty to three charges including funnelling more than $45,000 in illegal contributions to the Bush/Cheney re-election effort in Ohio. He faces still faces more than four dozen other charges related to stealing more several million dollars from a rare-coin pension fund he managed for the state. Noe's wife, Bernadette, was the head of the Lucas County board of elections and was forced to step down after "irregularities" were found in their management of the 2004 election. Some of those points are discussed in Bobby Kennedy's Rolling Stone article on the gaming of the 2004 election today.

TODAY: The FEC finds that Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist broke the law by not declaring some $1.4 million in personal loans for his campaign. He's being fined $11,000. Just another day for Republicans who seem to have lost their once-vaunted interest in "the rule of law."

What will TOMORROW bring?...Place your bets...

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Article Categories: Ohio, Bill Frist, Thomas Noe

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