According to a late report from AP tonight, Ohio’s Sec. of State (and Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney ’04 Re-Election Committee) J. Kenneth Blackwell, “accidentally invested” in Diebold last year…
…
Blackwell has said the Diebold machines are the only electronic machines to meet federal and state standards under the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
The “discovery” (that he owns shares in Diebold, not that Diebold is the only company to meet HAVA standards — which they don’t) occurred during some ethics filings as the Governor’s race, in which Blackwell is a candidate, heats up in the Buckeye State…
Democrats weren’t buying Blackwell’s explanation. “If he can’t manage to know what’s in his checkbook, why would the people of Ohio want to trust this man with the state’s checkbook?” said Brian Rothenberg, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party.
According to a Rasumussen poll released on Friday, Blackwell currently trails the likely Democratic nominee for Governor, Rep. Ted Strickland by a 10 point margin of 50% to 40%.
Strickland beats Petro as well in a face-to-face match-up by even more: 47% to 34%.
Strickland appears to be widening the gap against both of them. But count no chickens yet. This is, after all, Ohio.
whaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Brad wrote:
"But count no chickens yet. This is, after all, Ohio."
Yes, this is Ohio (for those who may not be aware of this):
As Alito Takes Supreme Court Seat, Ohio GOP Guts Election Protection
Excerpt:
"HB3 also ends the ability of the public to conduct meaningful audits of voting machines. Election protection activists recently forced the adoption of an auditable paper trail into the Ohio election process. In a state where virtually all ballots are cast and/or counted on electronic equipment, this cuts to the core of the ability to monitor an election’s outcome. The new provision in HB3 will make the paper trail virtually meaningless.
HB3 further imposes a huge jump in the cost of forcing a recount. In 2004, the charge was $10 per precinct, with some 11,366 precincts in the state. Thus the Green and Libertarian Parties, which paid for it, had to pay somewhat more than $113,660. Now the charge will be $50 per precinct, jumping the charge to some $568,300.
Finally, and perhaps most astonishingly, HB3 eliminates the state statutes that have allowed citizens to challenge the outcome of federal elections within the state. After the 2004 election, election protection advocates filed a challenge to Bush’s victory. Their attorneys were attacked with an official attempt to levy sanctions, and then were thwarted from an effective suit when GOP Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell locked up the state’s voter records.
But HB3 would now entirely eliminate any possibility of a state-based legal challenge. The only alleged recourse for those wishing to officially question the vote count in a presidential, US Senate or US Congressional race in Ohio would be at the United States Congress. There is now no recourse whatsoever on the state level.
So the Ohio GOP has taken another giant step toward ending the possibility of any other party ever taking power in the Buckeye State."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0202-20.htm
Its time these flat-jackets get taken down.
Kenneth Blackwell, and every single damn crony in Ohio will be taken down. Talbott and the corrupt judges just got convicted, and they aren’t done with Ohio.
Blackwell will have to be forced out since hes a criminal, then open all his Diebold files. End of HB3 and the voting scam.
They won’t put any permanent hold on ohio at all once we are finished with em. ….
Lets see… I "accidently" bought Diebold stock, and
I disinfranchised my brothers on election day
please, terror alert my ass out of office
Looks like I’m going down with Wally, Tom(s),Katherine
and all my fellow honest Republicans
Payback is a bitch
Is this illegal, or a conflict of interest, for the SOS to own shares in the company that counts the votes??? Is it illegal?
He "accidentally" invested? ACCIDENTALLY??
*LMAO*
Add his mugshot to the wall of shame, he is SO going down.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I shouldn’t get my hopes up – but the sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and we dodged some really nasty storms here this weekend with very, very minor damage – and now this.
It’s just that kinda day, ya know?
🙂
They say this cat Kenneth Blackwell is a bad mother . . .
SHUT YOUR MOUTH! I’m talkin’ ’bout SHAFT.
Big Dan #4
I am beginning to wonder if anything in Ohio is illegal, except fair elections.
And it isn’t really a good defense to say one accidentally sh*t on themselves. Accidents are not the stuff competence is made of.
The only thing Blackwell really does accidentally is every once in awhile tell the truth.
… oops … I mean #6 Big Dan …
I’m thinking, politicians are above the law of the United States, and it’s got to stop. They are using our tax money and our military to line their pockets and kill people.
The GOP pattern is to make money off of their office. Blackwell invests in DIEBOLD, then as SOS installs DIEBOLD machines around the state. Cheney runs Halliburton, then gives them no-bid contracts on a war-for-profit based on lies. Bush is an oil man, and we’re attacking an oil country Iraq, then Iran, another oil country, but not the 3rd part of the axis of evil North Korea. Guess what? No oil in North Korea!!! Rumsfeld makes $5million on Tamaflu, after sitting on the board of the company that makes it and has $25 million stock in them. They are raping the United States!!!!!!! At least I’m not dying for them, like the soldiers.
and bush ACCIDENTALLY invaded Iraq !
Iran , Iraq typo !
Two words: katherine harris. Hope we head this one off at the pass! SMUT, nothing but SMUT. Thank you for making sure to emphasize the polls going into the primary election in Ohio, Brad. Here’s hoping this kickback’s a bitch.
Re: COMMENT #4 by WELL WELL
Have another hit. That must be some strong stuff.
Totally
It’s amazing that a-holes like him can shirk election laws by dragging their feet.
How did he do it? Didn’t he delay the recount until it was right before the deadline. He can get away with that??
If the election somehow was close and in Kerry’s favor, he’d have a recount done in .5 seconds.
I hope the people of Ohio see him for what he is and give his opponent the biggest landslide victory ever!
Totally
It’s amazing that a-holes like him can shirk election laws by dragging their feet.
How did he do it? Didn’t he delay the recount until it was right before the deadline. He can get away with that??
If the election somehow was close and in Kerry’s favor, he’d have a recount done in .5 seconds.
I hope the people of Ohio see him for what he is and give his opponent the biggest landslide victory ever!
I’ll be more impressed after the election. I hope this isn’t deja vu!
If Blackwell the Diebold machines would tip the election to the GOP, wouldn’t this be insider trading?
I’m damn near speechless!!!
This shit makes me want to ACCIDENTALLY put Blackwell in hospital.
Yeah, yeah, I know.. I shouldn’t sink to the Coulter level. 😉
Blackwell is a scumbag who exercised his vulgar display of power to steal the 2004 election for Bush. He acted illegally to obstruct in the recount as well which Josh covered at comment #3. I really hope he gets a jail time next to Bush someday for his criminal actions. Would pay to see prizon video of his face looking at Bush everday behind bars reminding him how the American people reward bastards who rig elections and obstruct with our right to vote. Fcking Ruster -your days are numbered.
At the risk of sounding lofty, I’d like to put Blackwell’s corruption into a big-picture context.
We have no antitrust enforcement worth the name any more. That means corporations can do pretty much anything they damn please. They can use their own inflated stock to buy out the competition, they can merge with overseas companies and thus attain global domination through sheer size (bigger is better…sic), they can acquire independent papers and TV networks to control information flow (except for blogs, thank God), and they can form alliances with corrupt politicians to control election outcomes and (afterward) direct legislative policy in their own favor (corporate welfare).
Blackwell is a corrupt snake, no question. But he’s a symptom of a larger problem, not the cause of it. Unchecked corporate power is at the root of all of this; it started with the Reagan Revolution and continued when the Bushes (and Clinton, too) got into bed with Corporate America.
If anyone doubts this, just count the high-level people in both parties who went to Washington from corporate boardrooms (including directly from Wall Street) since the 1980s: Donald Regan, Robert Rubin, Dick Cheney, Jon Corzine, Paul O’Neill, John Snow, Donald Evans…
Oops. The phone just rang. It was a Democratic party fund-raiser (actually, an automatic dialing machine, followed by a real person) asking for money again, to "keep Republicans from controlling state legislatures." I told her to call me back after Democrats decide to address the issue of election fraud. Her reply was, "I see."
Election fraud is tied in with corporate power. It’s true that Republicans are better at fraud than Democrats are, but the truth is that the only big Democrat willing to take on rampant corporatism, face to face, is Ralph Nader. And it’s no coincidence that Ralph Nader is also the only candidate from 2000 and 2004 who has had the guts to say that those two elections were rigged.
Democrats don’t talk about election fraud because corporations control the media, and if they did the corporate-controlled media would call them "sore losers" and "conspiracy theorists." In fact, that’s what happened to the few Democrats who dared to raise the issue.
This is bad for Mr. Blackwell. However to compare, see this question.
Pop Quiz:
1) Who was the Florida state Attorney General during the 2000 election?
2) Who was the chairman of the Al Gore Florida campaign in 2000?
Anybody know? Anybody guess?
The answer for both questions is:
Bob Butterworth.
This is important because as AG, he would be in charge of investigating and prosecuting any election fraud. Many of you here still rail about the "stolen election", yet your guy’s campaign manager, in his role of state AG, didn’t prosecute anybody for voter fraud that would have changed the election. Why? Go ahead with more conspiracy theories, please.
Before you go jump on me, over and over in other blog subjects, BVAC keep posting "Cheney shot a guy in the face", when that was not the post topic.
If what is accused about Ohio Sec.Blackwell turns out to be true, then that is quite bad for him. The Ohio authorities will have to decide what he gets charged with and a JURY will decide his guilt.
But did any of you have anything to say about Bob Butterworth in Florida 2000? Probably not. You were too busy screaming, "Re-Vote Re-vote", with the Palm Beach County Democrats and watching Jesse Jackson’s rally down there .
In reply, Robert said, that "corporations control the media". Oh, really? See, I thought it was the other way around. hehe (just kidding)
Uh, Ralph Nader was not a Democrat candidate, he was Green Party, remember? But if he is the only one to talk about election fraud, then who are the "few Democrats who dared to raise the issue" of election fraud? I really want to know!
Have a nice day!
Someone just FARTED in here ! ! ! ! !
Mike J
Do you ever get any on your cheapo flag?
Troll stroke for you