The Republicans Stole It Blind
RFK, Jr. wrote to my good friend Harvey Wasserman this quote from pollster Lou Harris: “’They stole the Democrats blind in the exurbs and rural counties. It’s obvious what they did – they stuffed the ballot box.’” Coming from a pollster with the credibility and experience of Lou Harris, this is an astonishingly powerful indictment.”
Farhad Manjoo, denialist for salon.com fails to note similar quotes from Harris that appear in Kennedy’s Rolling Stone article. The fact that a pollster of Harris’ stature would go on the record is precisely what’s new in the Kennedy article and of major significance.
As a Ph.D. in Political Science, I find the “reluctant responder” hypothesis by Warren Mitofsky implausible, as does pollster John Zogby. Basically, reluctant responders tended to be extreme third party candidate supporters, or voters for a major party candidate in an area dominated by the other major party. Mitofsky would have you believe Republican woman only became too shy to talk to pollsters only in the late afternoon and only in areas where people voted in a majority for Bush. This mythology fits into the Rovian spin that fundamental evangelical raced to the polls at the very last second to save W Bush. Local newspaper accounts and eyewitness observers reported no such surge.
The data from the Moss v. Bush election challenge in Ohio, the exit polls, the statistical analysis by Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips and the bizarre illegal behavior in Auglaize, Miami and Warren counties all point to voter theft in these counties.
Below is a Free Press article revealing obvious ballot tampering in Warren County. The Free Press has already published a map drawn by a Warren County Board of Election worker showing where the ballots were illegally diverted in that county.
Free Press uncovers evidence of ballot tampering in Warren County, Ohio
April 19, 2006
After locking out all media observers and declaring a Level 10 Homeland Security Alert, the Republican-dominated Warren County, Ohio reported the vote tally in the wee hours of the morning on November 3, 2004 — and gave George W. Bush a surprising 14,000 vote boost. Two election workers told the Free Press that the ballots had been diverted to an unauthorized warehouse where they had been possibly stuffed. That is, punched for Bush only. Maps were supplied to the Free Press showing the locations of the warehouse and the Board of Elections.
Warren County officials refused to allow the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism to handle the ballots, but they did allow us to photograph a few. Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., has analyzed the ballots for the Free Press and concluded that there is evidence of fraud in Warren County. The ballots as photographed with Dr. Phillips’ commentary below each ballot are included here for the first time.
The Free Press predicted early on that the ballots would be found punched only for Bush in Warren County. The Moss v. Bush lawsuit pointed to Warren, Butler and Clermont Counties as the three counties that provided more than Bush’s entire margin in the Buckeye State: Bush won Ohio by 118,000, and 132,000 votes were supplied in these three southwestern Republican counties.
Now, for the first time, the Free Press is releasing images of the obvious election fraud in Warren County. The Free Press will continue its ongoing investigation in Ohio despite stonewalling by Republican state officials. See the images by clicking on the link below.
View the actual ballots. (6.48MB — PDF)
The last paragraph of my latest post at salon.com went like this:
“Is there really any difference between tampering with vote counts and disenfranchising Democratic voters when the end result is the same? Eventually Mr. Manjoo will be able to triumphantly lift his head out of the sand and proclaim that elections here in Ohio ARE pretty much above reproach because by the time Ken Blackwell and the rest of the Republicans are done here, “stealing” elections in Ohio will be perfectly legal!”
I also thought Salon editor Joan Walsh’s comments in response to this brouhaha were completely lame and, judging from Salon reader responses, I’m certainly not alone in my opinion. I’d like to think that she’s learned something from all of this but only time will tell.
On a brighter note, the issue of Blackwell’s CONTINUING efforts to disenfranchise Democratic voters got some traction in today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer:
” Blackwell gets brunt of registrants’ anger
He denies trying to disenfranchise voters
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Ted Wendling
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- Democrats and representatives of voter-registration groups accused Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Monday of trying to rig this November’s election by publishing draconian new rules governing the activities of people who register voters.
Testifying at a hearing chaired by Judy Grady, Blackwell’s director of elections, lawyers for ACORN, Common Cause, the Ohio Democratic Party and other groups said training documents drafted by Blackwell’s office are so vague that they subject registrars to felony penalties for even inadvertent violations.
As a result, ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has drastically cut back its voter-registration efforts while its lawyers review the new rules, Katy Gall, Ohio ACORN’s head organizer, said in an interview.
Gall said ACORN has registered 35,000 voters in six Ohio cities since February. Its goal is 130,000.
Samuel Gresham, an attorney for Common Cause, charged that the rules are “part of a consistent pattern, intentionally so,” by Blackwell to disenfranchise black, low-income and Democratic voters.
Blackwell’s actions, Gresham and others said, are intended to suppress Democratic voter turnout in what is shaping up as a closely contested governor’s race between Blackwell, a Republican, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland.
“It appears that Ken Blackwell finally figured out how to deal with long lines on Election Day,” said state Democratic Party spokesman Brian Rothenberg. “He’s just trying to outright deny people the right to vote now.” ”
How depressing, though, that experts think this is going to be a “closely contested governor’s race” . After what’s gone on, wouldn’t you think Atilla the Hun should be able to waltz into Ohio and beat Ken Blackwell?? Ironically, there’s a lot of people out there now saying we deserve what we got and what we’re getting because we’ve *allowed* the Republicans to take over our state. I wonder how they’d like it if I mentioned that they’re the very same people who have *allowed* George Bush to take over our country? They feel helpless about a jackass for a president, a Republican-controlled Congress, and a right-leaning Supreme Court but somehow Ohioans deserve what we’re stuck with because we let it happen?!?! I hate irony!