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.

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."