As in Wisconsin, the GOP legislature trashed the secretary of state's plan. Despite the total unpreparedness of state and county election officials (or maybe because of it), the lawmakers set a new Election Day -- April 28 -- and dictated that the primary would be conducted almost entirely by mail.
But due to the Covid-19 virus situation, the U.S. Post Office mail was running slowly, with an estimated 10-14 day delivery time.
LaRose issued a directive on Friday, April 17, allowing in-person voting at each of Ohio's 88 county boards of elections on Election Day. If a voter requested a mail-in ballot and did not receive it by Election Day, they could come in and vote a provisional ballot.
But that was not the case throughout Ohio.
Election night results identified a staggering 13.9 percent of all the votes in the state remaining uncounted, according the secretary of state's website. There were 199,693 mail-in ballots remaining uncounted. Another 44,368 provisional ballots allowed under federal law added to the total of nearly a quarter million uncounted votes.
Despite huge Republican majorities gerrymandered into the legislature, Ohio is a swing state. Most of its statewide elections are competitive between the two major parties. So, to have 13.9 percent of all votes uncounted poses a serious threat to the validity of the vote totals. Not only were these ballots uncounted on election night, Ohio law does not require uncounted votes to be tallied for 10 days.
But that deadline came and went. The ballots weren't finally counted until the thirtieth and final day of election certification.
Franklin (home of Columbus) is the largest county in Ohio, and a Democratic stronghold. Some 17.3 percent of its ballots sat uncounted for a month. What's still unclear is the critical question of who had access to these ballots as they waited to be counted, and what was the official chain of custody?
Other counties, like Cuyahoga, the home of Cleveland, had higher than average uncounted ballots at 14.5 percent. So did Lucas County in the Toledo area with 14.5 percent uncounted as well.
On Friday, May 29, LaRose finally released his official results: 5,500 ballots that were cast at boards of elections on Election Day were rejected under an obscure state law stating that only disabled and homeless peoples' ballots were allowed to be counted as in-person votes on Election Day. Voters who had applied for paper ballots that never came -- but who were neither disabled nor homeless -- were completely disenfranchised.
Ohio's history of election theft dates in particular to 2004, when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry refused to challenge results that had been thoroughly skewed by Republican secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell ran the state's election while also serving as co-chair of the Ohio Committee to Re-Elect Bush-Cheney.
Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, vehemently demanded that he not concede and stand by demands for a state-wide recount. Kerry's staff was thoroughly briefed on the widespread "irregularities" that defined the election. Long lines (up to 12 hours in Gambier, home of Kenyon College) occurred throughout the state, but most intensely in African-American urban precincts, as again this year in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
But Kerry ignored the widespread pleas for a thorough investigation and surrendered the Buckeye vote count - and the presidency - at 1:00 pm the day after the election. More than 200,000 votes remained uncounted, far more than his official margin of defeat. To this day, Kerry has not publicly commented on electoral conditions in Ohio that plagued this year's primary, and are set to be repeated this fall.
Georgia also fell into the maelstrom this week. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was repeatedly warned against spending some $104 million in state money to purchase Dominion Voting machines, which has a thoroughly documented history of failure. The company's leading Georgia lobbyist was Chief of Staff for the previous secretary of state, Brian Kemp. Kemp, a KKK supporter, ran his own election for governor, counting himself more votes than Stacy Abrams, who continues to criticize the outcome.
The Board of Elections of Athens-Clarke County voted in March to use hand-marked paper ballots. But Raffensperger threatened fines and legal prosecution. His purchased machines predictably collapsed throughout the state this week, resulting in the usual huge lines and massive disenfranchisement.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi designated the fiasco as "by design." Raffensperger seemed to confirm that judgment as he termed the fiasco "a great day for Georgia" and denied any responsibility for the long lines and denial of voting rights.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
