Why would Dubya go to 'the other Florida" on Election Day to meet with two officials who would lead the counting of the Ohio vote? Wouldn't that look suspicious? What could have been so important?
Two remarkable articles by indy reporter Bob Fitrakis present a very plausible answer:
Agenda item #1: A VOTE DELAYED CAN BE A VOTE DENIED
Blackwell had instructed Ohio's 88 county election supervisors to delay counting provisional ballots for 11 days. (They STILL have not been counted.) Dubya and Blackwell presumably speculated about the percentage of provisional ballots that would favor Kerry, the size of the artificial "lead" the delay would give the incumbent, and what would be done to make sure most of the provisional ballots NEVER would be counted.
Agenda item #2: Bringing every fundie out of the woodwork with anti-gay "Issue One".
The Secretary of State openly campaigned against "gay marriage" all over Ohio with far-right Reverend Rod Parsley. Presumably Dubya wanted to figure out how long would be the Ohio "coattails" from that ballot initiative, the source of his anticipated popular vote majority in 11 key states.
Agenda item #3: How to maximize the wait to vote in pro-Kerry areas:
Besides Dubya and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the third high-level participant in the election Day meeting in Columbus was Franklin County election supervisor Matt Damroscher, a former county Republican Party Executive Director. According to Fitrakis's sources, up to 2000 fewer voting machines were provided in 2004 than in 2000 to minority precincts under Damrosch's control. This explains seven-hour waits to vote that discouraged thousands of pro-Kerry Ohioans from voting: their voting machines had been carted out to the Republican suburbs!
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From
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/983 :
"The day after his concession, Kerry drew 3,893 votes closer to Bush when a computerized voting machine glitch was discovered in an Ohio precinct. A machine in ward 1B in the predominantly Republican Gahanna, Ohio, recorded 4,258 votes for George W. Bush when only 638 people cast votes at the New Life Church polling site.... The right-wing New Life Church voting glitch is interesting. Free Press reporter Marley Greiner has been tracking Blackwells relationship with far right-wing religious forces like Biblical America and Christian dominionist groups that want to establish theocratic religious rule in America. Blackwell was campaigning around the state with the Reverend Rod Parsley as part of a Silent No More tour in support of amending the Ohio Constitution to outlaw gay marriage, on the ballot as Issue One. Many mainstream commentators claim it was the widely popular Issue One amendment campaign that brought out Bush voters in record numbers in rural Ohio. Gay marriage was already outlawed by state statute, and six of the seven Ohio Supreme Court justices are Republicans....
In Auglaize County, a letter dated October 21 under the signature of Ken Nuss, the countys former deputy director, alleges that Joe McGinnis, a former employee of Election Systems & Software (ES&S), violated election protocol with his unauthorized use of the countys central tabulating computer that creates ballots and compiles election results. Nuss, who resigned on October 21, alleges that McGinnis was improperly granted access to the computer the weekend of October 16.
In Miami County, with 100% of the precincts reporting at 9am EST Wednesday, Nov. 3, Bush had 20,807 votes (65.80%) and Kerry had 10,724 (33.92%). Miami reported 31,620 voters. Inexplicably, nearly 19,000 new ballots were added after all precincts reported, boosting Bushs vote to 33,039 (65.77%) to Kerrys 17,039 (33.92%). CASE is investigating why the percentage of the vote stayed exactly the same to three one-hundredths of a percentage point after nearly 19,000 new ballots were added. CASE members speculate that its either a long-shot coincidence with the last three digits remaining the same, or that someone had pre-set a database and programmed a voting machine to cough up a pre-set percentage of votes. Miami County uses an easily hackable optical scanner with the central counter provided by the Republican-linked vendor ES&S."
From
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/981 :
"Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder told the Dispatch that the voting machine glitches were why the results on election night are unofficial. Damschroder is the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party, and sources close to the Board of Elections tell the Free Press that Damschroder and Ohios Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell met with President Bush in Columbus on Election Day. The Dispatch also confirmed a Free Press story, posted on Election Day, involving far fewer voting machines in predominantly black Democratic inner-city voting wards. On page one, under the misleading headline, Suburbs were busiest even with more machines, the Dispatch reports that: As seasoned voters in many of Columbus predominantly black neighborhoods waited in long lines Tuesday, they quickly recognized that the crush of new voters wasnt the sole cause of congestion. There also were fewer voting machines. ...
Prior to Election Day, the Republican Party in Ohio planned to utilize an archaic Ohio election law to place Republican poll challengers in every polling site. The strategy, according to Republican insiders, was to clog the voting lines in predominantly black Democratic wards in urban areas, so voters would turn away in frustration. When that plan came under heavy media scrutiny, federal courts in Ohio ruled against it, and a massive Election Protection Coalition operation was put in place to monitor the polling sites, Republican Central Committee sources say that Damschroder instituted 'Plan B'. One Republican Central Committee member told the Free Press that Damschroder held back up to 2000 machines and dispersed many of the other machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County....
The Free Press has previously documented massive Republican voter suppression techniques leading up to this years election in an article entitled Twelve Ways Bush is now Stealing the Ohio Vote (
http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/810 ). ... Bob Fitrakis is the Editor of the Free Press (freepress.org), a political science professor, an attorney, and co-author with Harvey Wasserman of George W. Bush vs. the Superpower of Peace."
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