Ohio Governor Race - Fox Guarding Henhouse

By Evelyn Pringle
Created Nov 4 2006 - 5:02pm

Ken Blackwell is ready to cash in on the Republican promise of putting him
in the Governor's mansion in 2006 after he proved that he was indispensable
in the successful plot to rig the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio for
George W Bush.

As secretary of state in 2004, Blackwell held broad powers for setting
election standards in everything from the processing of voter registration
to overseeing the distribution of voting machines and ballots. He was also
simultaneously serving as co-chairman in the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

Which means, in 2006, with Blackwell still in the position of secretary of
state, once again voters in Ohio have a fox guarding the voting henhouse.
Only this time the stakes are even higher for Blackwell because his
political future is on the line.

In 2004, long before election day, a major voter suppression scheme was
successful when Blackwell issued an order saying voter registration forms
would only be accepted if they were on 80-pound, unwaxed, white paper, and
as many as 72,00 voters lost their right to vote due to an unavoidable
registration error.

Printed registration forms in local newspapers provided to help citizens
register to vote were rendered useless and one Ohio County had to post a
notice online saying it could not accept its own registration forms.

Under the threat of court action, on September 28, 2004, six days before the
registration deadline, Blackwell withdrew but the damage was done.

On election day itself, voters in Democratic precincts encountered a wide
variety of obstacles in the path to the voter's booth. They faced Republican
challengers at the polls, the purging of names from voter rolls, and the
most obvious scarcity of voting machines, but only in Democratic
neighborhoods.

In Republican precincts there were plenty of voting machines, but in urban
precincts, where many African-Americans voted, and in other Democratic
strongholds, such as polling stations around college campuses, there was a
conspicuous absence of enough machines.

For instance, at Kenyon College where Democratic students had registered in
record numbers, Blackwell allotted only 2 machines even though there was a
1,300 surge of voters, and the wait was up to eleven hours.

In contrast, Republican fundamentalist students at nearby Nazarene
University had one machine for 100 voters and students faced no waiting
lines.

Democratic voters at inner-city precincts in cities like Cleveland,
Columbus, and Toledo, who were voting for Kerry by a margin of nine to one,
had to wait in line up to 7 hours.

Due to a deliberate and well coordinated effort, at other polling station
all over the state there were not enough machines and Democrats had to stand
in line in the rain for as long as ten hours, and of course just as
intended, in many cases it was impossible for people to wait that long so
many left without casting a vote.

By midmorning on election day, when it became clear that people were having
to drop out of line without voting due to the long wait, precincts asked
Blackwell for the right to distribute paper ballots to speed up the process
and Blackwell denied the requests, claiming it would invite fraud.

In a desperate attempt to stop the madness, a lawsuit was filed, and the
affidavits that were filed by voters and election officials in support of a
plea to the courts for help, describe election fraud in motion. An affidavit
by an official from Precinct 40 stated:

''I am serving as a presiding judge, a position I have held for some 15+
years in precinct 40. In all my years of service, the lines are by far the
longest I have seen, with some waiting as long as four to five hours.

"I expect the situation to only worsen as the early evening heavy turnout
approaches. I have requested additional machines since 6:40 a.m. and no
assistance has been offered.''

By the time US District Judge Algernon Marbley issued an order requiring
that voters be given paper ballots in early evening, it was too late.
According to estimates by the Washington Post, as many as 15,000 voters in
Columbus alone had given up and left without voting

When poll closing time came, some precincts illegally dismissed voters who
had waited for hours in the rain, in violation of Ohio law, which requires
that people waiting in line at closing time be allowed to vote.

Critics say there is no way to definitively estimate how many citizens lost
their right to vote in Ohio because they were forced to drop out of line to
go to work or take care of their children.

The plot to steal the election involved other tactics as well. In the summer
of 2004, the Toledo Blade reported that 28,000 voters were erased from the
Lucas County voter registration rolls and that the purge included voters
like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F.
Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years."

In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic
transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4,000 votes when only 638 people voted at
that polling station.

Democratic Congressman, John Conyers of Michigan, and the Democratic staff
of the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into the Ohio
election and received more than fifty thousand complaints from Democratic
voters. In stark contrast, there were no complaints filed by Republican
voters in Ohio in 2004 alleging a deprivation of the right to vote in
Republican precincts.

And make no mistake, the well coordinated statewide effort to steal the
election involved a whole bag of dirty tricks. In Columbus, where 125,000
new voters had registered, more than half of them black, the board of
elections predicted that it would need 5,000 machines to handle all the
voters.

But instead preparing for the large turnout by lining up more equipment, the
House Judiciary investigation found that Matt Damschroder, the chairman of
the Franklin County Board of Elections, and former head of the Columbus
Republican party, decided to "make do" with 2,741 machines.

And even then, he distributing the machines to favor Republicans. According
to the Columbus Dispatch, precincts that had voted 70%% or more for Al Gore
in 2000, received 17 fewer voter machines in 2004, while strong GOP
precincts received 8 more machines.

As a result, an investigation by the Columbus Free Press, showed that white
Republican suburbanites had average waits of only twenty-two minutes, while
black urban Democrats waited on average three hours and fifteen minutes.

During the election, inner city voting machines broke down and polls opened
late. The Toledo Blade reported that the sole machine at the Birmingham
polling site in east Toledo broke down at about 7 am, and that per order of
Blackwell, there were no paper ballots available for backup.

The first major indication that serious voter fraud had been committed was
when the wide unexplainable discrepancies began to appear between the exit
polls and actual vote counts and they all favored Bush.

Experts say exit polling is the most reliable polling because unlike
pre-election polls, in which voters are asked to predict future behavior,
exit polls interview people leaving the voting box about an act that they
just completed.

On the basis of exit polls in 2004, CNN predicted that Kerry would defeat
Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2%%, but in the end Bush supposedly won Ohio by
2.5%%.

In fact, precincts where Bush received at least 80%% of the vote, the exit
polls were off by an average of 10%%, a pattern that experts say indicates
Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in those precincts.

Bush also tallied 6.5%% more votes than the polls had predicted in
Pennsylvania, and 4.9%% more in Florida. According to Steven F Freeman, a
visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, who specializes in
research methodology, the odds against all 3 of those shifts occurring in
concert was one in 660,000.

"As much as we can say in sound science that something is impossible," he
says, "it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual
vote count in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election
could have been due to chance or random error."

Mr Freeman made a point of telling Robert Kennedy Jr in an interview for an
article in Rolling Stone Magazine that he's no Democrat lover. "I'm not even
political -- I despise the Democrats," he said. "I'm a survey expert. I got
into this because I was mystified about how the exit polls could have been
so wrong."

But Mr Freeman also said in Rolling Stone, "When you look at the numbers,
there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of
election fraud."

"The discrepancies are higher in battleground states," he points out,
"higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater
proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there
were the most Election Day complaints."

According to Mr Kennedy, the exit poll created for the 2004 election was
designed to be the most reliable in history. Six news organizations hired
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, whose principal, Warren
Mitofsky, pioneered the exit poll for CBS in 1967

Shortly before 8:00 pm, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed
by pollsters and told that Kerry had an insurmountable lead with at least
309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call.

As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed
Kerry ahead in ten of 11 battleground states, including Ohio, winning by a
million and a half votes nationally overall. But to this day, the Bush gang
would have voters believe that every single poll was dead wrong.

In January 2006, a group of mathematicians from the National Election Data
Archive, a nonpartisan watchdog group, compared Ohio's exit polls to the
certified vote count in each of the 49 precincts polled by Edison/Mitofsky
and found that in 22 of those precincts the results differed widely from the
official tally.

The wildest discrepancy came from a precinct that Mitofsky numbered "27," in
order to protect the anonymity of people surveyed. According to the exit
poll, Kerry should have received 67%% of the vote, yet the certified tally
gave him only 38%%.

The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3
billion, according to "The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit
Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount," US Count
Votes, National Election Data Archive, January 23, 2006.

Such results, the archive says, provide "virtually irrefutable evidence of
vote miscount."

The discrepancies the experts add, "are consistent with the hypothesis that
Kerry would have won Ohio's electoral votes if Ohio's official vote counts
had accurately reflected voter intent."

According to Ron Baiman, vice president of the archive and a public policy
analyst at Loyola University, "No rigorous statistical explanation" can
explain the "completely nonrandom" disparities that almost uniformly
benefited Bush."

The final results he said in Rolling Stone are "completely consistent with
election fraud -- specifically vote shifting."

After conducting an investigation of Ohio ballots, on July 29, 2005, another
expert, Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD testified at an Election Assessment
Hearing in Texas and said, "I have investigated the Ohio election results,
precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter
suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote
count."

Statewide, he said, there were 35,000 provisional ballots and over 92,000
regular ballots that were not counted as votes for president.

These uncounted ballots, he reported, most of them punch cards, were highly
concentrated in precincts that voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry, by
margins of 12 to 1 in Cleveland, 7 to 1 in Dayton, 5 to 1 in Cincinnati, 4.5
to 1 in Akron, 3 to 1 in Lorain County, 2.7 to 1 in Stark County, and 2.3 to
1 in Trumbull County.

In Lucas County, Mr Phillips said, other means of voter suppression led
directly to lower voter turnout in Democratic precincts. The 88 precincts
with the lowest turnout were all in Toledo and all were won by John Kerry
and complaints were filed in 31 of these precincts.

Among the complaints he noted were: long-time residents removed from the
voting rolls, broken voting machines, polling stations running out of
ballots and turning people away, voters sent back and forth between polling
places, and long lines not designated by precinct so that voters waited in
the wrong line.

One-third of provisional ballots were not counted, he said, often because
people voted at the wrong table in the right polling place.

But it appears like the chickens have come home to roost because Ohio
politicians are now up to their necks in scandals, making its current
Republican led government a poster child for the term "culture of
corruption."

The largest corruption probe in Ohio history has produced charges against
Governor Bob Taft, convicted of four misdemeanors for accepting unreported
gifts; and his side-kick, Tom Noe, co-chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 Ohio
reelection campaign.

On October 27, 2005, Tom Noe was officially charged with illegally funneling
$45,400 to the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in
Columbus, in a scheme where Noe made contributions by passing the money
through 24 friends and associates, described as "conduits" by investigators.

Some of the known "conduits," included 4 current or former Ohio elected
officials, including Toledo City Councilman Betty Shultz, Lucas County
Commissioner Maggie Thurber, former state Representative Sally Perz, and
former Toledo Mayor Donna Owens.

Court records also show that 2 former aides to Governor Taft also served as
funnels.

All of the conduits signed donor cards that stated they were the source of
their donations even though each knew that Noe made the contributions,
prosecutors said. Each politician faced state ethics charges for failing to
disclose the money they received from Noe.

On May 31, 2006, Noe entered a guilty plea in the US District Court in
Toledo to 3 felony charges related to violating campaign finance laws.

On June 1, 2006, the Toledo Blade reported that, "State and federal
politicians from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the
Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -
have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his
wife."

In the summer of 2005, Tom Noe, was described by the Columbus Free Press, as
a high-roller crony of Governor Taft, Ohio Senator George Voinovich and
President Bush.

That said, at the time of Noe's indictment, a senior Justice Department
official called the case the largest campaign money-laundering scheme
prosecuted by the DOJ since the new campaign finance laws were enacted in
2002.

For many years Noe was the Chairman of the Board of Elections in Lucas
County and he was heavily involved in the procurement deals that brought
Diebold voting machines into inner city Toledo and many of those machines
suspiciously malfunctioned on election day in 2004. Sworn testimony in
hearings conducted by the Free Press after the election confirm that
thousands of inner city voters were disenfranchised due to Noe's decisions.

In by now a widely publicized 2003 fundraising letter, Diebold CEO Wally
O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio's 2004 electoral votes to Bush, and Noe and
O'Dell were two of Ohio's nineteen Bush Pioneers or Rangers, a group that
includes only high money donors.

Before Noe got busted, Blackwell and Noe were practically kissing cousins.
In the months before the 2004 election, when voting rights activists tried
to challenge Blackwell's partisan handling of provisional ballots in court,
Noe intervened on Blackwell's behalf.

While Tom handled the court duties, his wife Bernadette worked on the Board
of Election in Lucas County to reverse the Ohio tradition of allowing
provisional ballots to be cast in precincts other than the one in which
voters were registered to help disenfranchise inner-city Toledo Democratic
voters.

And as a reward for their large contribution to the theft of the 2004
election, in January 2005, Noe and his wife co-sponsored Ohio's inaugural
ball in Washington, and according to the Toledo Blade, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Noe
embraced. The President then hugged Mrs. Noe."

Noe had previously been appointed chairman for a committee of the US Mint,
that advises the US Treasury secretary on designs and themes for coins and
congressional medals. According to a Treasury Department press release Noe
was recommended for the appointment by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert
(R-Ill) and nominated by Treasury Secretary John Snowe.

For years Noe was called northwest Ohio's "Mr. Republican." And his
generosity to Ohio politicians did not go unrewarded. He was appointed to
the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the Bowling Green State University board, and
the Ohio Board of Regents.

But the grand prize came in 1997, when Noe gained access to $50 million from
the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation fund and was given authority to
invest in coins and other collectibles, and under the contract, 80%% of the
profits were to go to the Worker's Compensation fund, and the remainder to
Noe.

On April 8, 2005, the election theft celebration by the Noe couple came to
an abrupt end, when an investigation into the Lucas County election turned
up so much dirt that Blackwell was forced to fire the entire Lucas County
Board of Elections including Bernadette.

And then twenty days after Blackwell fired Bernadette, on April 28, 2005,
the Toledo Blade reported that the US attorney for the Northern District of
Ohio, had confirmed that his office, in conjunction with the FBI, was
looking into Noe's fundraising activities, as chairman of the Bush-Cheney
campaign in northwest Ohio.

Parallel to the Federal probe, the Blade noted, was the investigation of the
Lucas County and Franklin County Offices of the Prosecutor into Noe's
inability to account for $10-12 million from the Workmen's Compensation
fund.

Less than a month later, on May 26, 2005, state law enforcement officials
raided Noe's company trying to find out what happened to the missing $10-12
million. The distinct possibility has been raised numerous times, that Noe
may have funneled some of the mysteriously-missing money to politicians.

According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, the Noes have given more than
$200,000 to politicians over the last 16 years and their "giving increased
substantially," the Blade noted, "after the Bureau of Workers' Compensation
in 1998 gave him the first of two $25 million payments to invest in his
rare-coin funds."

In addition to Governor Taft, the investigation has led 2 of Taft's former
aides to plead no contest to ethics charges. On July 29, 2005, Brian Hicks,
Taft's former Chief of Staff, and Cherie Carroll, Hicks' executive
assistant, admitted that they took gifts from Noe.

On February 9, 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission referred 2 other former
Taft aides for prosecution. H Douglas Talbott admitted that he funneled
money from Noe to 3 Ohio Supreme Court Justices and accepted a $39,000 loan
from Noe, and J Douglas Moorman was referred because he failed to report a
$5,000 loan from Noe.

On February 13, 2006, Noe was indicted on 53 felonies counts related to the
Workmen's Compensation fund after a grand jury charged him with 22 counts of
forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of tampering with records,
5 counts of grand theft, 6 counts of aggravated theft, and one count of
engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Noe is currently right smack in the middle of a jury trial on the above
charges, the last thing that Ohio Republicans wanted in the news in the
weeks before the mid-term elections.

The future does not look bright for Blackwell. According to a poll reported
on November 2, 2006, in Columbus Business First, "a Democratic sweep brewing
in key state and federal political races."

"The survey," Business First said, "found 55 percent of those questioned
said they would vote for Democrat Ted Strickland in the Ohio gubernatorial
election Nov. 7, and 39 percent said they planned to cast their ballots for
J. Kenneth Blackwell."

That said, if nothing else, the results of the 2004 election demonstrate
that polls mean nothing in Ohio and critics say voters had better not
underestimate the possibility of another stolen election with Blackwell
still in charge of the process.

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson