Obvious Conflicts of Interest

Finally, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Chris Redfern has requested the obvious. That Hackwell remove himself from investigating the voting malfunctions in Cuyahoga County based on conflict of interest. Hackwell is responsible for negotiating the unbid contract with Diebold in Ohio. Diebold is a partisan, Republican firm that practice nontransparency in all its software and hardware. Hackwell and former Dieblod CEO Wally O’Dell worked together to get Bush re-elected.

Hackwell is a partisan hack who has taken advantage of his public office to become a multimillionaire. Hackwell should neither be responsible for counting the votes in his own election nor for investigating election irregularities in Cleveland. Hackwell will treat the information as practice for sabotaging this November’s election in the Democrat-rich city of Cleveland.

Hackwell believes in purging voters, switching precincts at the last second, changing long-standing precincts to confuse voters, causing long lines at the polls, and finding obscure and ancient Ohio laws in order to suppress votes. Hackwell’s speaking style is to mouth clichés like “Earth to Barbara Boxer,” or “He can run (Strickland), but he can’t hide,” and pretend like he invented them and that they’re very profound.

Diebold and other e-voting machines are being rejected by states all over the country. Their primary purpose is to rig elections and create non-transparency. It should come as no surprise that the Diebold opti-scans messed up in Cleveland. After all, they messed up in Toledo in the 2004 elections and there were widespread problems with e-voting machines in Ohio’s 2005 elections.

Diebold and other electronic voting machines will serve the purpose of creating long lines and miscounting votes in heavily Democratic districts. Hackwell knows this.  Why do you think we call him Hackwell?

Hackwell’s spokesperson responded to Redfern’s reasonable demand with the statement that it was “a silly request.” What is truly absurd is that the state of Ohio would allow the most partisan politician in the state to count his own votes while he’s running for governor.