Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman of The Free Press have a disturbing piece over at Truthout: Ten Ways the McCain/Palin GOP Is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote.
Lest anyone think this is the stuff of tin foil hat wearers, I would urge them to read Robert F. Kennedy's excellent article Was the 2004 Election Stolen? which was first published in Rolling Stone. It gives an excellent recap as to what took place in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.
Below the fold we'll look at what the skunks are up to this year and my apologies for the length; there's a lot to cover. If this has already been diaried, please let me know and I'll delete. Onward...
But first, a quote from that Rolling Stone piece by Bobby Kennedy Jr. because it's important:
The issue of what happened in 2004 is not an academic one. For the second election in a row, the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks. Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office -- which means, in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself.
In August of 2006, Judge Algernon Marbley ruled in the King-Lincoln lawsuit that all materials related to the 2004 elections in Ohio must be preserved. This was on top of a standing law that said the materials should be protected for 22 months after November 4th, 2004. Marbley's ruling made it a federal offense to mess with any of those materials in any way, shape or form.
Since when has the threat a federal offense stopped a Republican? If you don't already know, you can probably guess what happened.
Enter Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell who, coincidentally, served as the Ohio co-chair of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. Mr. Blackwell "issued ambivalent orders to the state's 88 county Boards of Elections" regarding the preservation of the disputed 2004 election materials.
Mr. Blackwell ran for Governor of Ohio in 2006 and fortunately lost to a Democrats Ted Strickland (Governor) and Democrat Jennifer Brunner became Secretary of State. Ms. Brunner wanted to establish a repository in Colombus, Ohio for all 2004 election materials so that a definitive recount would establish what really happened in Ohio during the 2004 election.
But in August of 2007, Mark Dunn - Ohio's Attorney General - informed the King-Lincoln attorneys that 56 of the 88 county Boards of Elections had illegally destroyed all or some of their records and ballots from 2004.
A recount of what happened in 2004 is now impossible. So WTF, right? Surely somebody must have been held responsible, right? Wrong. Truthout:
There have been no state or federal prosecutions for the illegal destruction of these materials. Nor does there seem to be any guarantee similar destruction will not follow the 2008 election.
In 2004, Bush's margin of "victory" was less than 119,000 votes so it's pretty startling to learn that the GOP-controlled Boards of Elections in Ohio eliminated some 308,000 registered voters from the rolls. The purges were, of course, conducted in heavily Democratic districts.
Well they got away with it in 2004, so why should this year be any different?
Columbus, Ohio August 13, 2008 -- Nearly 600,000 eligible Ohio voters may be dropped from the voter rolls if Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner doesn't act to protect these voters, according to findings based on publicly available information discovered by Advancement Project and Project Vote.
These voters -- disproportionately voters of color and young voters -- are subject to being removed from Ohio's voter registration rolls without notice or a hearing because of the state's vague regulations on vote caging, a process that enables representatives of one political party to challenge the voter registration credentials of voters at polling places on Election Day.
The Ohio counties with largest numbers of returned notices prior to March 2008 Presidential Primary are Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Lucas and Summit, where Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo are located.
The GOP has been hard at it though, caging registered voters by sending them notices requiring the post office return all undelivered mail. If the mail comes back, the GOP challenges the validity of that voter. cannot be used as a sole basis for striking voters from registration rolls.
To her immense credit Ms. Brunner has ruled that the GOP can't simply use returned mail as a means to strike voters from the registration rolls. She's also required that any registered voter fingered for removal be issued notice and given a public hearing by the Board of Elections. But as pointed out by Truthout: "the process remains intimidating for prospective voters - especially the heavily-targeted list of those voting for the first time. With sixty days left to election day, the on-going impact remains unclear."
This next bit of hanky-panky is deviously ingenious. Brunner and voting rights advocates want the BOE in all 88 Ohio countines to mail absentee ballots to all voters and previous restrictions for casting such ballots have been lifted. So far so good, right?
I'll let Truthout explain what that party of "family values" did next:
Ohio's GOP leadership has made a loud public show of supporting this universal access to absentee ballots. But the Republican-controlled legislature pointedly failed to authorize enough money to the Secretary of State's office to pay for the full mailing. In a stunning display of public cynicism, the GOP leadership has since told Brunner, in a non-binding promise, that she should just go ahead and order the local BOE's to do the mailings. The Legislature, they say, will then vote the additional money at some point in the future.
Brunner has refused to do this, pointing out that the potential shortfall would be in the millions, and that such an order - in essence, an unfunded mandate - might be illegal. As a result, using a calculation based on per capita postage rates, she has informed every BOE how much state money they can expect. She is encouraging those that have the additional money in their budgets to do the mailings on their own.
The GOP-sponsored shortfall has thus introduced chaos into what should have been the orderly, manageable process of providing every Ohioan with a paper ballot prior to election day. As it now stands, some counties will be mailing absentee ballots and others will not. The uneven distribution is expected to favor GOP voters in better-funded rural and suburban districts. Should problems arise as a result of this uneven distribution, the GOP will certainly blame Brunner.
Looks like they're setting her up like a bowling pin to me... not to mention Ohio voters. In addition, the Ohio Republican Party is resisting Same-Day Registration and Voting. By allowing voters to cast an absentee ballot when they register - a tremendous convenience for those working on election day, that is to say, most everybody - they could avoid long lines and the often demonstrated pitfalls of the electronic voting machine.
But noooo... The Ohio Rethugs have called on Brunner to "revoke a directive to allow residents to register to vote and cast an absentee ballot the same day." The 'Pugs say this is "illegal" and the GOP is expected to "deploy a full attack on this provision". Yes I know it's hard to believe but it would seem the "party of patriots" doesn't want Ohioans to participate in the process for the first time with relative ease and security.
I needn't remind Kossacks what this one despicable attempt at voter supression could do to the Obama campaign's admirable tactic of signing up young, first-time voters -- if the GOP succeeds.
And speaking of those electronic voting machines, "the Ohio-based Diebold company has admitted that its machines are vulnerable to manipulation and the dropping of significant numbers of votes". So not only do we have the manufacturer of the machines admitting they're no good but also:
Studies by the Brennan Center, Princeton University, the Carter-Baker Commission, the Government Accountability Office, the Conyers Committee and others, have all concluded that results coming from such machines can be easily manipulated, and election outcomes reversed, with just a few keystrokes. A $1.5 million report to Brunner's office concluded that electronic machines could easily have been used to steal the 2004 election in Ohio.
One might THINK that would be enough to throw them all in the dump and ask for the taxpayer's money back but nooo...
...Because of the Help America Vote Act, authored by former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney (just recently released from Federal prison), electronic voting machines will be in far greater use in Ohio and around the nation during the 2008 election than ever before.
Again, to her credit, Brunner has ordered a halt to some better-known e-voting problems, one of which is called a "sleep over". That's when electronic voting machines have been stored at the homes of poll workers prior to election day. She trying, God bless her but she shouldn't have to. It's apparently a full-time job just making sure the Republicans don't cheat their way into the White House for the third time in a row.
Fitrakis and Wasserman go on to point out even more worries: For example Mr. Blackwell eliminated numerous precincts where people had cast their votes for decades. Many precincts have been shifted around and thus the potential for election day chaos is great simply from a geographical/logistical point of view. It's almost certain many voters will appear at the places they always have to vote and no one will be there because that precinct was moved.
Data Mining is a huge concern and the 'Pugs have their dirty fingers in that pie too. Again, Truthout:
Registered voters are already reporting strange letters from undisclosed senders or unidentified nonprofit organizations "welcoming" voters to the system. As in 2004, voters should expect a deluge of phone calls as well, telling them if they vote they'll be arrested if they have outstanding parking and traffic tickets, back child support payments due, or are on parole, probation or reside in a halfway house. None of these are legal grounds for disenfranchisement. But we expect thousands of such calls will be made to keep first-time and uninformed voters away from the polls.
Lastly they identify expanded voter identification requirements as yet another likely problem hurdle placed before the Ohio voter.
A US Supreme Court decision has upheld an Indiana law, drafted and passed by the GOP, requiring photographic identification for voter registration. Because millions of young, poor, homeless, minority and elderly voters may not have voter ID, various state laws are expected to eliminate large numbers of mostly Democratic voters from casting ballots throughout the country. In key swing states like Ohio, which now require ID other than signature to vote (except by absentee ballot), the outcome of the election could be significantly affected.
It's easy to see where all this is heading. Despite exit polls showing a win for Obama, the actual outcome could be very different - just like in 2004 - or just a flat-out "win" for McCain due to any number of Republican dirty tricks aimed squarely at the poor, homeless, minority and first-time voters.
So when I read best-of-intentioned diaries pointing out where Dukakis was at this point during his candidacy to remind us all to not freak out about the polls, well... It's not the polls I'm worried about.
While there is a little good news -- we are somewhat older and wiser than in 2004 -- it could very easily still be not enough. The GOP has no problem whatsoever with stealing an election. (This is another reason I'm all for taking off the gloves in this campaign... whether Mrs. Palin or her daughter's feelings get hurt is at the very bottom of my list of concerns)
I'd rather this not be entirely a "Sky is Falling" diary. So I'm hoping someone will tell me that the Obama Campaign is not just aware of this but has a plan. I wish this was something we could organize against -- and prepare for -- but it's not. It's like a virus that infects your computer -- you can buy the latest software to protect it, but today's solution will likely not be effective in preventing the virus of tomorrow - or a "virus" called the GOP prevailing on election day.