With current press attention focused on Blackwell's stringent rules on registering voters for the 2006 election, now appears a rehash of the controversy over the 2004 election.
Since the publication of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s article -- "Was The 2004 Election Stolen?" -- in the recent edition of Rolling Stone Magazine, Blackwell continues to be a subject of interest in that controversy.
In a Columbus Dispatch commentary last Sunday, Joe Hallett says, "Echoing an editorial in the New York Times, Fisher, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, called upon Blackwell to relinquish his Nov. 7 Election-oversight duties." Hallett, however, does not support Kennedy's conclusions about the election being stolen and does not believe that Blackwell was "chief villain."
Bob Herbert's New York Times article on June 12, "Those Pesky Voters," also responds to the Kennedy article and states, "No one has been able to prove that the election in Ohio was hijacked. But whenever it is closely scrutinized, the range of problems and dirty tricks that come to light is shocking. What's not shocking, of course, is that every glitch and every foul-up in Ohio, every arbitrary new rule and regulation, somehow favored Mr. Bush." Herbert compares Blackwell to Katherine Harris; both co-chairs of the Bush-Cheney campaigns in their respective states. Herbert's closing statement summarizes the problem: "The right to vote is supposed to mean something in the United States. The idea of going to war overseas in the name of the democratic process while making a mockery of that process here at home is just too ludicrous."
Ohio is featured in another widely published AP article by John McCarthy. He reports on the continuing efforts of Citizens for a Strong Ohio to settle a Common Cause/OH, Alliance for Democracy case, which has been litigated over a six year period, addressing the 2000 Ohio Supreme Court election, in which there was a finding that CSO was a PAC, and should have disclosed its contributors. The claim was that CSO used phony issue ads funded by illegal corporate money to unseat Justice Resnick, a sitting Democrat judge.
McCarthy also talks about the 2004 "firestorm" where Kerry conceded Ohio the day after the election, which prompted the Greens and Libertarians to demand a recount, which according to them was also mishandled. Except for a case filed by the League of Women Voters claiming the Ohio election system has been mismanaged for years, all other suits against Blackwell or others concerning the 2004 election have been dismissed. However, McCarthy quotes Cliff Arnebeck, a Common Cause/OH board member and one of the attorneys active in lawsuits over the 2004 election, "The framing I have in mind for litigation is to look at what is being set up for `06 and say we're not speculating that people are willing to suppress the vote, we have the proof." ..."It's a positive view of the evidence of fraud in '04."
It looks as though controversy over elections is the norm for Ohio, and as an important swing state, it will not go away soon.
