At the primary election 2006, my wife and I arrived at the Mifflin Fire Department, Ashland County, to vote, we were told we were registered Republicans, we have been registered independents for years.. My question to all registered Independents, Did this also happen to you, or has it happened to you in the past few years, and if so please call me at:

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I have been concerned about the voting machines foisted upon us by Kenneth Blackwell for some time now. Now it is being reported on Lou Dobbs on CNN that the machines are very undependable and elections can be fixed. For Kenneth Blackwell to have anything to do with the process of getting the Diebold Computer Voting machines is a Conflict of Interest since he has stock in the company & used a no-bid process is unbelievable.

Kenneth Blackwell's run for Governor is a "Conflict of Interest" and should be challenged in a Court of Law, since he is the head of the Election Commission in the State of Ohio. I would hope that other people besides myself would find the above items a little upsetting to say the least, or is everyone asleep at the wheel or could care less if such things are happening in the buckeye state or indeed in the U.S. where deep concerns about the abuse of our voting rights are in question. If the whole election is fixed to come out to make sure the party in power is going to be the winner, doesn't this concern you?

I have a question for all Independent voters in Ohio. At the primary election 2006, my wife and I arrived at the Mifflin Fire Department, Ashland County, to vote, we were told we were registered Republicans, we have been registered independents for years.. What makes this a little strange is, a few minutes later, another couple arrived & were also told they were registered Republicans, again they were registered Independents. My question to all registered Independents, Did this also happen to you, or has it happened to you in the past few years, and if so please call me at: 419-368-6074 and let me know. What worries me, if this happened to all Independents in Ohio, wouldn't that sway the way the primary election came out over Democrats? Did this just happen in one precinct, one county, or all over Ohio? Please take the time to call and let me know if this happened to you.

George Brooks

Ashland, Ohio 44805

He can be reached at vareforms1@bright.net.

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.