The Nation: The Coming Ballot Meltdown

[kpete]

posted June 28, 2006 (July 17, 2006 issue)
The Coming Ballot Meltdown
Andrew Gumbel

Anyone wondering where America's next electoral meltdown will take place--and it can only be a matter of time--might do well to turn back to the scene of the last one. Ohio was, of course, ground zero of the 2004 presidential election, and now it's the battleground of one of the most hotly contested governor's races in the country. The Republican candidate this November is none other than Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, a man vilified by voting rights activists for a string of baffling and, to all appearances, nakedly partisan rulings in the 2004 presidential race, when he also doubled as co-chair of George Bush's state re-election campaign. Now he's at it again--issuing draconian guidelines on voter registration that carry the threat of felony prosecutions against grassroots get-out-the-vote groups, especially in Democratic-leaning urban areas, for even the slightest procedural irregularity. Despite denials from Blackwell's office of any malicious political intent, the guidelines have had an immediate chilling effect on groups like the activist community organization ACORN, which has suspended registration efforts pending urgent consultations with its lawyers. Several leading Democrats have urged Blackwell to step aside from all election-supervising responsibilities, a proposal his staff has greeted with near-derision.

It would be bad enough if Blackwell were acting merely to benefit his party, as he did in 2004. But in this case he's taking advantage of his office to act on behalf of his own ambitions. Unless something changes between now and November, he will remain in charge of counting the votes--his own and everyone else's. In a pivotal election in a pivotal state, this is far from reassuring. As Peg Rosenfield, an elections specialist with the League of Women Voters of Ohio who spent twelve years working in the secretary of state's office in the pre-Blackwell era, put it, "If you think '04 was a mess, just wait. I anticipate a debacle."

Much more at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/gumbel

[AndyA]

1. The Blackwell situation is a huge conflict of interest, and should not be

tolerated by law. Where is the Democratic opposition on this? If I were in Ohio, I'd be screaming bloody murder every single day. This is a blatant example of misuse of power. Does anyone really believe Blackwell will run a clean election?

[tomp]

9. "Where is the Democratic opposition on this?"

indeed, where?

i'm still waitng for an explanation of why no centralized dem. party opposition to election fraud. the default explanation for no opposition is complicity.

[chill_wind]

10. Where, indeed? n/t

K&R

[izzie]

2. I am not shocked.

If you can not buy it steal it. We are getting to be a joke to the world. We should all register as Republican so they will leave us alone and then just vote as we like.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Where in HOLY HELL are the Ohio Democrats?

I am simply astonished that the local and state Democrats are not beating down the doors to the mass media in an attempt to derail Blackwell's plans. I have also wondered what they plan to do in regard to election day to try and avert what happened last time.

[Warpy]

4. And where in the hell has the DNC been all this time?

We've been screaming about election fraud for SIX BLOODY YEARS, and we have yet to see any action out of those old boys within the Beltway. Lawsuits are being fought, but they're largely being fought OUTSIDE the party and on a state by state basis.

The system is broken. However, it's the system that put them where they are, so I guess they're ready to tolerate it until they're out of office, out of power, dead.

[kster]

5. Where the hell are the honest Democrats and Republican

politicians? Neither party has any concern in how their contests are being counted and tabulated. I find that.........

VERRRRRRRRY INTERESTING!!

[Stevepol]

6. Proud to provide #5 to put this on the Front Page.

[PATRICK]

7. The DNC and the less

than stellar Democratic party in Ohio itself, in response to its own best activists and members laying out the horrors, decided to roll over and play moderate.

Without opposition like that fatal moderate position there would be no Blackwell success story.

There are many remaining ways to act tough and smart to defeat Blackwell and fraud and every opportunity every day is being passed as if it was never there. Instead you get victim-like screams and fear for the entertainment and growing confidence of the fraudsters. So this will be passed down to the voters, who in there turn will be ALLOWED by their party to scream and play the victims to no purpose except the gloating elation of the crooks. This seems to be an all too common story.

If there are traitors or buffoons or fearful misfits that seek to ingratiate themselves with the GOP it does not matter, no proof is needed. The results are the same, the judgment is the same, the cure is the same.

[Awsi Dooger]

8. One of the best articles I've read

This section of a late paragraph was particularly revealing. I'm not sure it isn't representative of our election problems nationwide:

"The problem, in the end, with many of the stolen-election theories is not that they are wrong to assume that Ohio is corrupt; it is that they have misunderstood the nature of that corruption. Many--including Robert Kennedy Jr. writing in the June 1 Rolling Stone--imagine Ken Blackwell as the mastermind of some coordinated Republican Party conspiracy to re-elect Bush, in which the counties fell magically in line with his or the party's directives. The reality, though, is that Blackwell's influence only went so far, and the counties--partly because of the lack of support from the secretary of state's office--acted largely on their own. The county boards of elections were, in turn, stuffed with political appointees from both parties who engaged in struggles of varying degrees of intensity. (The stereotypical image of boards of elections, which may not be that far from the truth, is one where the Democrats are sweet, well-meaning old ladies, and the Republicans are razor-sharp lawyers.) The autonomy and complexity of the counties cannot be overstressed. As Catherine Turcer, legislative director of the anticorruption group Ohio Citizen Action, put it sardonically: "Every county has its own party structure, so you can launder money eighty-eight ways."