Among other things, HB3 will make it virtually impossible for any challenge to be mounted involving any votes cast or counted on electronic machines or tabulators -- meaning virtually every vote cast in Ohio.

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Below is info re an Ohio House Bill to be voted on most probably this week . . .it's unbelievable.

The more publicized parts of Ohio HB3 will henceforth require voter ID and we all know what that means. But what has not received publicity - and for this I fault the Ohio state reps - is HUGE:

1. The cost of ordering a recount will quintuple - going from $10 to $50 PER PRECINCT - making it virtually unaffordable

2. Electronic machines will be exempted from recounts by random sampling, even in close, disputed elections. In the 2005 election, 41 additional Ohio counties (of 88) were switched to Diebold touchscreen machine

3. HB3 will make it virtually impossible for any challenge to be mounted involving any votes cast or counted on electronic machines or tabulators -- meaning virtually every vote cast in Ohio.

Marji Mendelsohn and Janice Weiss, co-founders, WeUnite.org

From the Daily Digest of Democracy for Cincinnati:
It is highly likely the so-called "election reform" bill, HB 3, will be addressed by a state House and Senate conference this week AND voted in both
houses. There may not be any opportunity for public testimony. It would be a good week to contact you state legislators. Congressweb appears to be an
easy way to do that. http://congressweb.com/

While Diebold is not explicitly addressed in the legislation, you might express your concern about electronic voting and your support to keep the
machine audit in the bill. The ID requirement is definitely something to oppose.
John Burik MEd, LPCC

Now, shocking legislation is poised to disenfranchise a vast number of Ohio voters. Our legislature recently finished work on a large piece of revised election law that we believe will disenfranchise as many as 100.000 voters.
Sub HB3 is so problematic that, even after the Senate corrected some of the worst parts of this legislation, Senator Grendell broke ranks with his Republican colleagues over the fairness of the bill. When it went back to the House, it was turned down 99 to 0 apparently because it imposed a limit on how much state bosses could collect from their employees. Sub HB3 as passed by the Senate was opposed at the hearings by:
CASE (Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections)
OLWV (Ohio Chapter of the League of Women Voters)
CC (Common Cause)
PFAW (People for the American Way)
OCA (Ohio Citizen Action)
GCVC (Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition)
OHE (Ohio Honest Elections)
Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless
NAACP

In testimony at the hearings, it was only supported by the secretary of state.

All the pieces of the election puzzle that we have seen in the past couple of years, when assembled today, show a picture where the foreground is focused mainly on incompetent and untrustworthy vendors supplying the voting machines. And in the background we see new election process rules that make voting significantly harder for isolated groups of people: the very young, the elderly, and the highly mobile. We can't blink our eyes and make this picture go away, we must create a better one.
From CASE (Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections) see http://caseohio.org

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.