Bob Bennett, Ohio GOP Head and Last Holdout on Cuyahoga County Election Board, Suspended by Brunner

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Ohio’s Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner cleaned out the last dead-ender from the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Board of Elections today. That would be the chairperson of the BoE and the head of Ohio’s Republican Party, Bob Bennett (see previous coverage here.)

Bennett was the last of the four directors of the Board of Elections (supposedly two Democrats and two Republicans) to leave the board of the state’s most Democratic-leaning county. The other three resigned after requested by Brunner in the wake of the convictions of two Cuyahoga Elections Officials for rigging the 2004 Presidential Election recount, a raft of disastrously run elections and a new criminal investigation into malfeasance at the county election board. The new investigation includes the early printing of absentee ballot results and an unexplained network cable left attached to the central tabulator overnight.

According to a statement posted to the SoS website, Brunner notified Bennett today about his suspension in writing, and has also announced yet another new charge against him:

“The Secretary of State’s office will be working with the current and emerging leadership of the board to develop a plan improving, with the assistance of the Secretary of State’s office, the board’s operations and service to the citizens of Cuyahoga County. To further these efforts, I believe it to be in the best interests of all involved to suspend your participation as a member of the board,” said Brunner. The notice of suspension pointed to the reasons addressed in the complaint filed against the Cuyahoga Board of Elections members by Brunner on March 23, 2007.

Brunner cites an additional reason for the suspension involving instructions to former Executive Director Michael Vu to award a contract to a consultant without Board approval.

Bennett instructed Vu to award a second contract to David Hopcraft in the amount of $14,750 on or about February 26, 2007, for public relations services to be paid for by public dollars by the board of elections. The Dayton Daily News on March 26, 2007 reported Mr. Hopcraft to be a “GOP spokesperson.”

Accountability to continue in Ohio…

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Bob Bennett, Ohio GOP Head and Last Holdout on Cuyahoga County Election Board, Suspended by Brunner

18 Comments

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18 Responses

  1. 1)
    Larry Bergan said on 4/3/2007 @ 11:53pm PT: [Permalink]

    Anybody know the whereabouts of Michael Vu. I have a feeling he’s been secretly rehired in Salt Lake. He’s just the kind of guy they like around here.

  2. 2)
    Dredd said on 4/4/2007 @ 4:14am PT: [Permalink]

    Hey Bennett, your lights may be on but nobody is home dude.

    Instead of awarding paybacks to cronies out in the open with a swagger, you are gonna have to work hard to take the Fifth, because not just any neoCon for any “reason” can do that anymore.

    Your “imagination” won’t help you now.

  3. 4)
    Floridiot said on 4/4/2007 @ 4:53am PT: [Permalink]

    Not to personally attack Bennett :), But it appears that he has more chins than a chinese phone book.

    …about that all night cable access to the main tabulator…

    With that ‘E-Mail gate’ starting to fade from our memories,
    A lot of people have supposed that the other end of that wire was hooked into the same system as the E-mail host outfit in Tennessee.

    I have a notion that it was more than just that machine

    Cannonfire had a few good links to that effect, including them running military services from the same outfit in this same assholes wifes name.

    I hope you are paying fairly close attention to this also, Brad and everyone, it could be our nexus to the hack along with all the other tricks

  4. 5)
    Dredd said on 4/4/2007 @ 6:16am PT: [Permalink]

    Mr. Bennett. Here is a song you should ponder:

    50 Days To Leave Your Liar

    The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
    The answer is easy if you take it logically
    I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
    There must be fifty days to leave your liar

    She said it’s really not my habit to intrude
    Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued
    But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
    There must be fifty days to leave your liar
    fifty days to leave your liar

    Just slip out the back, jack
    Make a new plan, stan
    You don’t need to be coy, roy
    Just get yourself free
    Hop on the bus, gus
    You don’t need to discuss much
    Just drop off the key, lee
    And get yourself free

    (50 Ways, modified for effect).

  5. 6)
    big dan said on 4/4/2007 @ 6:50am PT: [Permalink]

    Floridiot: The word “Suspended” covers some of his chins, too.

    But I digress…

    Next: What about investigating the Warren County lockdown? Where they counted votes in secret, due to a fake FBI terror alert, which the FBI denies they made?

    From a letter from Conyers and several others, to Ken “I’m corrupt” Blackwell:

    ……………………………………………..

    Warren County Lockdown ““ On election night, Warren County locked down its administration building and barred reporters from observing the counting. When that decision was questioned, County officials claimed they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10” on a scale of 1 to 10, and that this information was received from an FBI agent. Despite repeated requests, County officials have declined to name that agent, however, and the FBI has stated that they had no information about a terror threat in Warren County. Your office has stated that it does not know of any other county that took these drastic measures.

    In addition to these contradictions, Warren County officials have given conflicting accounts of when the decision was made to lock down the building. While the County Commissioner has stated that the decision to lockdown the building was made during an October 28 closed-door meeting, emailed memos ““ dated October 25 and 26 ““ indicate that preparations for the lockdown were already underway.

    This lockdown must be viewed in the context of the aberrational results in Warren County. In the 2000 Presidential election, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore, stopped running television commercials and pulled resources out of Ohio weeks before the election. He won 28% of the vote in Warren County. In 2004, the Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry, fiercely contested Ohio and independent groups put considerable resources into getting out the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike in 2000, independent candidate Ralph Nader was not on the Ohio ballot in 2004. Yet, the tallies reflect John Kerry receiving exactly the same percentage in Warren County as Gore received, 28%.

    We hope you agree that transparent election procedures are vital to public confidence in electoral results. Moreover, such aberrant procedures only create suspicion and doubt that the counting of votes was manipulated. As part of your decision to certify the election, we hope you have investigated these concerns and found them without merit. To assist us in reaching a similar conclusion, we ask the following:

    1. Have you, in fact, conducted an investigation of the lockdown? What procedures have you or would you recommend be put into place to avoid a recurrence of this situation?

    2. Have you ascertained whether County officials were advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent and, if so, the identity of that agent?

    3. If County officials were not advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent, have you inquired as to why they misrepresented this fact? If the lockdown was not as a response to a terrorist threat, why did it take place? Did any manipulation of vote tallies occur?

    We await your prompt reply. To the extent any questions relate to information not available to you, please pass on such questions to the appropriate election board or other official. Please respond to 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 by December 10. If you need more time to investigate and respond to some of these inquiries, we would welcome a partial response by that date and a complete response within a reasonable period of time thereafter. If you have any questions about this inquiry, please contact Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff at (202) 225-6504.

    ……………………………………….

    (This is part of a letter, signed by:)

    Sincerely,

    Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
    Rep. Melvin Watt
    Rep. Jerrold Nadler
    Rep. Tammy Baldwin

  6. 7)
    Ancient said on 4/4/2007 @ 7:57am PT: [Permalink]

    What I’ve Learned So Far

    When it is understood
    Dark and Light power
    are of the same Original Source,
    One may understand them
    as a Whole.
    All That Is—
    Love, the direct path
    Fear, the karmic teacher to Love.
    Love obliterates Fear.
    Oringinal Intent—
    alignment with
    PURE LOVE.
    Free Will—
    the Personal Power to get there.

  7. 8)
    Ancient said on 4/4/2007 @ 9:32am PT: [Permalink]

    Can you believe
    Tehran’s actin more christian
    than DC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Happy Easter
    Get rid of GUANTONAMOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  8. 10)
    Anastasia P said on 4/4/2007 @ 10:11am PT: [Permalink]

    Chins? You should see his jowls. That man, like so many of today’s Republicans, seems excessively well-fed. He is no match for the slender, sensible, straight-talking Jennifer Brunner.

  9. 11)
    Larry Bergan said on 4/4/2007 @ 11:37am PT: [Permalink]

    Everybody turn on MSNBC right now! This frozen screen has been on the air for at least 15 minutes.

    KARL ROVE PROTESTS
    PROTESTING STUDENTS THROW OBJECTS AT KARL ROVES CAR

  10. 12)
    Larry Bergan said on 4/4/2007 @ 11:42am PT: [Permalink]

    The religious school for the Mormon church had protests against Cheney coming to give the graduation commencement speech.

    Many more students showed up to protest Cheney. The corporate media would even walk a few yards to film the counter protest because it was so small.

  11. 13)
    Larry Bergan said on 4/4/2007 @ 11:46am PT: [Permalink]

    RUN FOR THE HILLS, REPUBLICANS!

    Even the students at BYU are saying NO MORE KILLING!

  12. 16)
    john y said on 4/4/2007 @ 1:30pm PT: [Permalink]

    Has anybody been to the votescam.com website lately. This is the website of the daughter of one of the brothers who wrote the book votescam. It seems to have been turned into a commercial site. Wht happened?

  13. 17)
    Mark S said on 4/4/2007 @ 8:42pm PT: [Permalink]

    Yup, looks like it is gone. And I just got one of those Deception Dollars that has that website on it. I wonder if Victoria forgot to renew the domain. Frightening.

(Comments are now closed.)


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