Last Sunday's Dispatch article titled "Ousted," suggects Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has been heavy handed in her removal or rejection for reappointment of some election officials.  Among the  published list is the former Chair of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and Chair of the Ohio Republican Party, Robert Bennett, notorious for his role in the Ohio election of 2004, where voter suppression and voting anomalies were evidence of a strong partisan interference to sway the vote.  Keith Cunningham, former Republican member of the Board of Machine Examiners, was another infamous character out of the drama of 2004, who attempted to interfere with the Green Party Recount by not using a random system.

The article claims the former "fair-minded" judge (Brunner) has been accused by a prominent Republican legislator as "injecting a culture of fear and intimidation" into the county BOE's.  It would seem that it is the Dispatch which is injecting fear by their relentless criticisms of Brunner who is just trying to fix the broken system she inherited, including inherently flawed voting machines.

Common Cause/Ohio wants to congratulate Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner for her efforts to "Get it Straight in 2008," at least in Ohio.  She promised to work for open, fair and honest elections, and having implemented one of the most extensive testing programs in the country, she has bravely taken on vendors and election reform activists alike.  Her recommendations released last week brought compliments for her efforts, but also some criticism for the substance.  

Akron Beacon Journal's Dennis Willard, last Sunday, referred to Ohio's campaign reform efforts as resembling the mythological figure Sisyphus who was condemned to an eternity of doing the meaningless task of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll back down again.

This imagery could stem from Ohio Election Commission Chairman Martin Parks' comment to William Todd, the lawyer representing the defendant in the latest campaign finance challenge before the commission, that his organization faces an "uphill climb."

Intrigue builds as the latest in the Brunner vs Bennett story unfolds.  After the third member of the Cuyahoga Board of Elections, Sally Florkiewicz, a Republican, resigned last week, Robert Bennett, chairman of the BOE, and also chair of the Ohio Republican Party, is the lone holdout, refusing to step down as Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has requested.

In further defiance Bennett filed suit against Brunner for violating his constitutional rights and saying that her accusations against the board are vague.  Friday's Cleveland Plain Dealer further states that the suit argues the definition of misfeasance and nonfeasance are not clear in Ohio law, that Brunner cannot remove Bennett for actions that happened before she took office, and that she wanted to remove him because he supported her opponent in the 2006 election.

Monday, SOS Brunner placed the Cuyahoga County BOE under administrative oversight "because it is without enough members to muster a quorum required to conduct business."

Ohio's new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, promised to restore trust in Ohio's elections. Having made many constructive changes in her few short weeks in office, last week, in a dramatic move, she has decided to clean house at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.  

Prompted by the many scandals and irregularities that have marked that county's elections, especially the recent conviction of two Cuyahoga County election workers and their sentencing to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount in 2004, Brunner took the bold move last week of asking for the resignation of the two Democrats and two Republicans on the Cuyahoga Board of Elections.

As of today, the two Democrats have resigned, but the two Republicans, Sally Florkiewicz, and Robert Bennett (who acts as the BOE chair, while at the same time serving as chair of the Ohio Republican Party) have resisted. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Bennett blames the voting machine vendor for the problems in 2006, and says that County Prosecutor, William Mason, was at fault for the 2004 problems, claiming Mason knew about procedural problems and did not correct them.  It has been reported that Mason has asked for an investigation of Cuyahoga BOE's conduct in the 2004 election.