2006 Ohio Gubernatorial Race - Information and Predictions

Since I live in Ohio and have a vested interest in who governs this state, I feel compelled to orate on the current state of affairs concerning the Governorship. Kenneth Blackwell, currently Secretary of State, is campaigning to be the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio.

First, let's get a little background on Blackwell, as his past plays an important role in our future, as well as my predictions for this election. As reported by Brad Blog, even as the Ohio votes were being recounted and verified in the 2004 presidential election, he sent out this letter, which violates two laws on fundraising and use of the official seal of the United States.

Second, Blackwell is responsible for having Ohio-based, Diebold, electronic voting machines installed in 41 new counties in 2005, and I believe 58 of 88 Ohio counties overall. Walden O'Dell is the former CEO of Diebold. O’Dell is on record stating that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President,” in a letter to Republicans before the 2004 elections. Blackwell happened to be the co-chair of the Bush/Cheney 2004 Ohio campaign during that time, it's worth noting.

Interestingly, Diebold builds and operates mainly ATM machines. All of these machines provide paper receipts for every transaction. These receipts are offered to the user of the ATM as a record of the transaction. Why then, do their voting machines not have this paper receipt? Do cash dispensers warrant more oversight than the votes of the American people? [update - Ohio has passed a law requiring paper receipts for all electronic voting machines in the future, though I don't know if it applies to existing machines. I assume it does.]

So now for the connection between Blackwell and Diebold...Blackwell was instrumental in bringing his Republican-friendly electronic voting buddies to our state. Despite obvious and dubious results in recent Ohio special issues and elected offices, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who personally negotiated the deal for the Diebold machines that he called the "best in the nation," insisted through his spokesperson Carlo LaParo that "The new touch-screen systems went well." Also of note is this information, posted on Brad Blog, "Diebold, along with Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) are the two largest Voting Machine Companies in America. Between them, they account for equipment which tallies more than 80% of America's votes."

From Lynn Landes
Online Journal Contributing Writer - An Online Journal article
"Bob Urosevich is currently president of Diebold. Todd is vice president of ES&S. In 1999, American Information Systems (AIS), purchased Business Records Corporation (BRC) to become ES&S. AIS (1980) was formerly Data Mark (1979). Both AIS and Data Mark were founded by the brothers Urosevich. In 2002, Diebold acquired Global Election Systems. Global was founded in 1991, which itself acquired the AccuVote system the same year. Bob Urosevich is a past president of Global."

The following is an excerpt from an excellent web site documenting huge voter fraud in the 2004 presidential election and highlight why Diebold could be the downfall of our modern Democracy...

The conflicts of interest in the American election system are stunning, if not outrageous (Research by internet activist Alicia):

1) Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was chairman and still owns a stake in Election Systems and Software (ES&S), the largest U.S. voting manufacturer counting 60% of U.S. votes--but also counted 80% of the votes in both of Hagel's landslide senate wins; and Hagel was caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

2) The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

3) Canton, Ohio's Diebold and ES&S together count 80% of all votes cast in America.

4) There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

5) While Diebold's new touch screen machines have no paper trail to verify data for a recount, the electronic voting machine corporation makes ATMs, checkout scanners and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate paper trails.

6) Diebold employed five convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central tabulator computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

7) Jeff Dean, Diebold's Senior Vice-President and senior programmer on its central vote compiling tabulator code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.

8) None of the international election observers were allowed into the polls in Ohio.

9) California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, BlackBoxVoting activists Beverly Harris and Andy Stephenson taught and filmed a chimpanzee hacking Diebold software.

10) 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail for a recount.

11) Virtually all--not some--but all voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

12) The governor of Florida is George Bush's brother Jeb Bush; and serious voting anomalies in Florida--again always favoring Bush--have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

PREDICTIONS ::

So, what does this all mean for us in Ohio in 2006? No matter who runs, no matter how popular they seem to be ahead of the election, no matter what historically accurate pre-vote polling says and no matter what exit polling indicates, Kenneth Blackwell will become our next Governor. It makes me sick, it's going to be a further blow to Democracy and it will happen whether we like it or not. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Also, it's worth noting Mr. Blackwell's character in general. He has already run attack ads on fellow Republican candidate Jim Petro. Rather than focus on the issues that he stands for, Blackwell is slinging mud. What a callous, short-sighted, mean-spirited tactic. When is this country going to demand that politicians stop running negative ads? Politicians are coming increasingly from the rich, entitled upper class. They have personal wealth to supplement their endless fundraising. Is this the kind of system we want? Do we want the rich 2% governing the other 98% of us? And these are our elected representatives? It's sickening.

To be fair, in the case of Blackwell, The Beacon Journal reported that Petro has $2.02 million in the bank for his campaign, while Blackwell has about $1.52 million. Democrat Ted Strickland has $2.12 million. Blackwell certainly has a fund-raising machine in place though and I wouldn't be surprised if he out-gains all by the time it's said and done this year.

So brace yourselves Ohio. We're in for more fraud and disgrace this year. Our state has become a political necessity for national Republican rule, and at the same time, their biggest inside joke. I'm tired of being the butt of a joke when it concerns nothing less than the true, free Democracy for us all. Republicans seem to think that it's the funniest thing they've ever heard.