As he does so, Blackwell is conducting the largest purge of voter rolls since the apartheid nightmare of the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow south.
Since 2000, under Blackwell's supervision, Boards of Elections in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo have eliminated some 500,000 voters from their registration rolls. Nearly all are in heavily Democratic urban areas. In a state where some 5.6 million people voted for president in 2004, this represents nearly 10% of the electorate. George W. Bush's alleged majority in Ohio 2004 was roughly 118,000 votes.
Skeptics claim Ohio's 88 county boards of elections are bi-partisan, because each has two Democrats and two Republicans. But all appointments, and all tie votes, are controlled by the Republican Secretary of State, meaning that all decisions by all Ohio BOEs are actually controlled by Blackwell.
The Free Press has further learned that even at this early date, some ten percent of absentee votes are being trashed by Blackwell's BOEs. Ohio's new "no-fault" rule allows anyone to vote absentee for this election, so absentee voting is estimated to increase 20-30%. Many Ohioans are opting for the absentee ballots to avoid electronic voting machines, which are notoriously vulnerable to tampering.
But Democratic sources in the Ohio Board of Elections have confirmed to the Free Press that about 10% of the absentee ballots cast so far are being rejected because of a technicality involving obscure driver's license numbers demanded on the ballot. Ohio driver's licenses contain two separate numbers: an eleven-digit number above the photo, and a much smaller eight character license number that begins with two alpha-numeric characters, followed by six numbers. It is the eight-character license number the BOEs demand on the absentee ballot. But many Ohio voters don't know that, and are using the wrong number---and thus having their ballot invalidated. Absentee ballots cast in Ohio tend to be overwhelmingly Democratic.
This absentee vote purge echoes another Blackwell dirty trick: the 2004 trashing of thousands of provisional ballots on which voters had not included their birth date. There was no statutory requirement to include the birth date, and thousands of provisional voters (and election officials) were never informed of Blackwell's special requirement. But he thus eliminated large numbers of mostly Democratic provisional ballots, benefitting Bush---a service he is now repeating for his own benefit with the absentees.
Blackwell has also attempted to eliminate his Democratic rival from the ballot outright. Seizing on a residency technicality, Blackwell's attack has elicited widespread scorn, including a lead editorial in the New York Times. Thus far, Blackwell has lost a series of court battles. The Columbus Dispatch has reported that the woman who originally filed the complaint---allegedly a Democrat who supports Blackwell---has asked that it be withdrawn. It remains to be seen if Blackwell has defnitively given up the effort.
The GOP has already eliminated a statewide referendum on worker rights. Issue One would have rejected parts of the Ohio legislature's vicious anti-labor Senate Bill 7, and was expected to draw pro-worker voters to the polls. But Blackwell disqualified thousands of signatures from the ballot petition, then sabotaged attempts to bring in more. On October 20 the GOP-dominated Ohio Supreme Court killed Issue One altogether. Fittingly, it will appear on many Ohio ballots, but will not count.
Overall, Blackwell currently trails Strickland by 20 points and more in state polls. Ohio Democrats have begun to crow that Blackwell's defeat is a done deal, just as they celebrated John Kerry's "victory" in 2004.
But Blackwell's push polls, voter elimination campaigns and ballot attacks cannot be underestimated. At very least, they could tip the balance in the state's hard-fought U.S. Senate and Congressional races, any one of which could help determine whether the Democrats re-take control of the Congress. Local pundits are already talking about a last-minute shift toward the Republicans, and bracing for thousands of alleged fundamentalist voters who will supposedly swarm the polls at the last minute.
In-depth studies of the 2004 ballots now cast serious doubt on the actual existence of such alleged voters, then or now. But unless Americans truly committed to tangible democracy are careful, J. Kenneth Blackwell just might find the ways to steal Ohio 2006, as he did in 2004.
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Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO?, just released by The New Press. They are of counsel and a plaintiff in the King-Lincoln lawsuit that has preserved the Ohio 2004 ballots. Fitrakis is an independent candidate for governor of Ohio, endorsed by the Green Party. Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED PLAN\ET, A.D. 2030, available via www.solartopia.org.
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