Dramatic New Charges Deepen Link Between Ohio's "Coingate," Voinovich Mob Connections, and the Theft of the 2004 Electio

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Posted by Rob Kall (about the submitter) Page 4 of 4 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

But the election in Lucas County had become so infamous that on April 8, Blackwell fired the entire County Board of Elections. Bernadette Noe had announced her plans to resign in December, 2004. But Blackwell's desperate move was a slap in her face, especially since the Secretary of State himself is at center stage in deepening disputes over how Ohio's 2004 election might have been stolen. Blackwell served as Ohio's Bush-Cheney co-chair while running what he claimed to be a fair election.

Blackwell's investigation of the Lucas County BOE has been received with shock and awe around the state.

It cites no less than thirteen areas of "grave concern" including "failure to maintain ballot security"; "inability to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot reconciliation": "failure to prepare and develop a plan for the processing of the voluminous amount of voter registration forms received"; "issuance and acceptance of incorrect absentee ballot forms"; and "failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvas."

Richard Weghorst, Ohio's Director of Campaign Finance, and Faith Lyon, the Secretary of State's liaison to county board of elections, found among other things that optical scan ballots received from a private printing company were left unattended and unsecured in a warehouse for nearly a month prior to the presidential election.

Ms. Noe was quoted in the Toledo Blade, saying, "It is important for everyone to remember that we had a good, fair, and accurate election in November, despite the fact that we were at the epicenter of the national election."

But election protection activists are swarming into Lucas County and have added to Blackwell's list a stunning litany of irregularities, all pointing in the direction of massive vote fraud for the benefit of George W. Bush, engineered at least in part by his friends Tom and Bernadette Noe.

Tom Noe has been reportedly liquidating his properties to pay back the state. But his financial sinkhole has already thoroughly tainted a deeply unpopular Taft regime.

The still-young Coingate and Votegate scandals have already catapulted the Bush/Rove Pioneer/Ranger Noe family close to the realm of headlines currently reserved for Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

But Ohio insiders predict much more to come.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-editors of "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2005 Election?, published by http://www.freepress.org, where "The Fitrakis Files" are also available. Harvey Wasserman's "History Of The US" is at http://www.harveywasserman.com.

© 2005 Free Press

1 | 2 | 3 | 4