Common Cause Blog :: Retribution in Ohio?

Retribution in Ohio?

By Murshed Zaheed
Posted on Sat Jan 22, 2005 at 12:21:00 PM EST

You didn't think we totally forgot about Ohio. Did you? Remember Cliff Arenebeck? Cliff is the Chairman of Legal Affairs Committee of Common Cause Ohio ("CCO"), who was leading election activists charge on all recount related activities in that State.

Well it seems like now that the dust has been settled, Mr. Kenneth Blackwell, the Seceretary of State, who we had asked to remove himself from all recount related activities, is going after Mr. Arnebeck.

Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro has filed a motion, on behalf Blackwell, to sanction Clifford Arnebeck,and few other attorneys for challenging the Ohio voting results:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to sanction four lawyers who handled a legal challenge, later withdrawn, to last year's presidential election in Ohio.

The motion targeting Clifford Arnebeck, Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt and Peter Peckarsky was filed Tuesday on behalf of Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's top elections official, said Kim Norris, spokeswoman for Petro.

The motion said the 37 protesters filed a "meritless claim" for "partisan political purposes" and said "a contest proceeding is not a toy for idle hands."

"Instead of evidence, (the lawyers) offered only theory, conjecture, hypothesis, and invective," Petro's office wrote. It said the challenge was filed "only for partisan political purposes."

Arnebeck called the motion frivolous. He said his clients "put in a great deal of evidence in the form of affidavits and sworn testimony."

He accused Blackwell of "stonewalling" and refusing to answer questions as requested in his December court filings.

Cleveland Plain Dealer has more on the story. Sure seems like there is a price for fighting to make sure every vote is counted as cast in Ohio. We will keep track of this story.

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Retribution in Ohio? :: 12 Comments

Complaint Text

Does anyone have a link to the text of Arnebeck's original complaint filing with the court?

If Arnebeck is alleging that Blackwell refused ton answer questions under deposition or interrogatories - such a failure would be a violation of the court rules in place in almost every court in the United States. Maybe Arnebeck should seek a sanction of his own from the court or the bar association, if Blackwell is a lawyer.

by Blagfly on Sat Jan 22, 2005 at 03:24:24 PM EST

Re: Complaint Text

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by Anonymous Citizen on Fri Aug 12, 2005 at 09:07:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Counting votes

It was frivolous to seek to annul the election when the outcome was decisive. Seeking to have every vote counted is an entirely different thing that seeking to throw them all out. Your "count every vote" mantra encourages voter fraud to the extent you ignore the pro-Democrat fraud in Minneapolis, Washington state and elsewhere.

I'll find your position credible if you ever, once, try to limit the count to legitimate voters, rather always trying to include the votes of dead people, multiple-vote voters, etc. Until then, you are ignoring the criminality of someone who deliberately cancels my (or your) vote, and you are just playing games with the legal system yourself.

by Anonymous Citizen on Sun Jan 23, 2005 at 10:55:53 AM EST

Re: Counting votes

And I'll find your comments more credible when they do not mimic standard propaganda phrases.

I have yet to hear of a resolution to the incident in Nevada where operatives of the Republican Party where witnessed destroying voter registration forms of people who were registering as Democrats. To my understanding, this eyewitness testimony was corroborated at some level, and in particular the Republican party seemed concerned enough to fire the accused agency.

The reports of dead movie stars etc. being registered as Democrats were never substantiated to my knowledge-- more likely rumors planted by political operatives.

by Anonymous Citizen on Sun Jan 23, 2005 at 05:02:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Counting votes

To my knowledge, CC has never advocated for the voting rights of the deceased or multiple voters.

CC has however consistently advocated for the integrity of the democratic process as a whole. The essential part of that process is of course voting.

I believe Mr. Arnebeck's complaint was in fact seeking to demonstrate 37 "legitimate voters," as you put it, were denied the exercise of their most basic political right and that their cases evidenced serious problems with the entire election process in Ohio.

Mr. Arnebeck's suit was a challenge to the total count in Ohio. Mr. Blackwell apparently feels that this suit was "trivial" since it sought to prevent the approval of an allegedly flawed election before it would be counted towards the election of our nation's highest post. I do not see how such a suit can be labeled "trivial."

Mr. Blackwell apparently would have prefered to see Mr. Arnebeck forego representing the interest of his clients in the integrity of Ohio's election while it mattered and instead file suit after the election in a more specific issue by issue manner.

If this sort of challenge is a bad idea in all cases, then why is there a provision for them in Ohio election law? The very law that Mr. Blackwell is supposed to uphold.

I don't agree with Mr. Blackwell's opinion. But now that the count cannot be changed, Mr. Arnebeck I hope will be looking for ways to bring Mr. Blackwell's "preferred" method of reform come to life. Then Mr. Blackwell will undoubtedly be in the uncomfortable position of coming up with new and different excuses for why legal attempts to ensure the integrity of the democratic process are "trivial."

A trial upon such a suit would allow Mr. Blackwell's allegations of triviality to be examined in the harsh light of a courtroom. That might be Mr. Arnebeck's ultimate defense to any sanction pursued against him.

by Blagfly on Sun Jan 23, 2005 at 07:37:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Counting votes

As one who worked (for ACT) in the Ohio election, I can tell you that a deliberate attempt was made to purge people in AfricanAmerican neighborhoods from voting in Cleveland. Several days prior to the election, I spot-checked a list of voters who were said to have omitted birthdates, current addresses, etc. and every person I spoke to was shocked to have been stricken. I don't believe I found anyone who had not voted previously from the address where I reached them. (In other words, these were not first-time voters, nor had they moved.) However, these people were instructed to call the board of elections to "fix" their information prior to the election. The catch was that as late as Sunday, Oct. 31, Mr. Vu, the board chair, had refused to issue written instructions as to what people should be told when they called.Some people were told to ask for provisional ballots, others were told that their information was being changed, and still others were told that they had to come downtown to the board to change the record in person. I heard from the League of Women Voters that the county commissioners had demanded that Mr. Vu issue instructions, but that he refused. Some of these practices were cited in a suit that I believe was thrown out.

On election day, as you may know, it was pouring rain, and the lines in these neighborhoods were hours long, due to the limited number of machines. Regardless of the outcome of the election, I believe we owe it to voters to investigate the shortcomings of the process. If people are not held accountable, they will continue to corrupt the process, and voters, understandably, will wonder why they bothered to vote.

In years gone by the Justice Department would have looked at this as a "pattern of discrimination," but as we know, there seems to little they will now prosecute. I would prefer that registration and voting be uniform and predictable in every state in the union, but barring that, we must press for clearly stated rules and regulations within states that are certified and published well in advance of the election.

by Carolyn Jackson on Thu Jan 27, 2005 at 05:40:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Counting votes

The hard evidence from Snohomish County in Washington State is that the outcome for touchscreen voting (with no paper or other audit trail) did not correspond to the outcome of the votes registered by mail-in ballot. Mail in ballots were used by twice as many voters as used the touchscreen voting machines. In fact instead of providing the Democratic candidate with the substantial victory represented by the mail-in vote, the touchscreen votes provided double that advantage to the Republican candidate. There has never before been an example of such a wide divergence between votes that can be verified and recounted and those that can never be recounted, and the statistical chance of this occurrence being random is infinitesimal. The fraud here appears to have benfited the Republican candidate by many thousands of votes in Snohomish County alone. Lets keep looking for examples of fraud in the voting patterns that this last election cycle exhibited. Statistical analysis can show us which elections to look closely at in the next couple of years. This kind of detective work could provide college and university courses (statistics, poly sci, sociology, etc) with real-world problems to solve.

by Anonymous Citizen on Sat Jan 29, 2005 at 12:21:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

selective indignation

How interesting that a Google search of your site for "washington gregoire" turns up only one hit, from "Ohio, Again and Again". Where is your outrage over the obvious fraud perpetrated in King County? Or are you such a Democrat operative that you think you can afford to be this transparent?

When you are reasonably impartial in your accusations, you might have more credibility. Until then, you can expect more comments like those before me. Or, if you insist on "staying the course," feel free to lose more elections. It'll only put bigger smiles on Republican faces.

by Anonymous Citizen on Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 04:17:46 PM EST

Re: selective indignation

Can you cite to any news articles, items that corroborate your claims of "obvious fraud" in King County?

by Anonymous Citizen on Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 06:27:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: selective indignation

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/206446_governo r04.html

When this was current, where was your anger? Or, if it didn't matter, since it was "your guy" who won under such suspect circumstances, can you at least admit that you're just a flack for the Dems?

by Anonymous Citizen on Tue Jan 25, 2005 at 02:07:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: selective indignation

Here is the latest that I found. I would gladly push for a new election in WA state if I could also see re-votes in all states in which there were discrepancies, anomolies, evidence of voter suppression, and lack of transparency. (Would you?) BUT this would only truly have my confidence if it were done with hand counted paper ballots.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/209121_elexlaw 24.html

Note that the word "fraud" is absent from this page.

by Anonymous Citizen on Tue Jan 25, 2005 at 04:49:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: selective indignation

Anonymous,

CC was closely following reports of voting problems in Washington, while they were current.
http://www.commonblog.com/story/2004/12/15/65734/507

And I would like to point out that CC was posting stories with irregularities cutting for both parties:

"But the discovery of nearly 600 uncounted ballots in King County, home of Seattle, has thrown Rossi supporters for a loop. Officials announced that 573 ballots had been mistakenly rejected because election workers failed to match signatures on absentee ballots against the paper records on file. "

There's on for Rossi and here's one you've yet to mention in your posts that cut against Rossi:

"David Burman, attorney for the Democrats, has estimated that about 3,000 ballots were wrongly rejected and should be included in the hand recount. Two thirds are in King County [Washington].

The secretary of state's office, county auditors, [Republican Dino] Rossi [gubernatorial candidate] and the state Republican Party fought the motion in court...."

In direct contradiction to your assertion that CC is "just a flack for the Dems," I offer the following reports of CC persuing investigations of Democratic misconduct.

Maryland Common Cause asks Maryland to investigate Post allegations
http://www.mcrkba.org/ThomasVMikeMillerJr/17.html

Common Cause Asks U.S. Attorney to Weigh Perjury Case against Speaker
http://old.commoncause.org/states/massachusetts/SHNS_FinneranPerjury_3-9-04.htm

NewsChannel 5 Investigates:
Lawmaker Owes Taxpayers Almost $1 Million
http://www.newschannel5.com/content/investigates/7973.asp

Isn't CC clever to discguise its true role as "flacks for the Dems" with such smokescreens?

Common Cause does not currently have an office in Washington. That may explain the sparse number of postings on the issue. Maybe you would be willing to help us start a Washington state office?

by Blagfly on Tue Jan 25, 2005 at 05:18:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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Retribution in Ohio?

By Murshed ZaheedPosted on Sat Jan 22, 2005 at 12:21:00 PM EST

By Murshed Zaheed
Posted on Sat Jan 22, 2005 at 12:21:00 PM EST