[Mb-hair] Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote

[SharmagneS at aol.com]

Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

The Republican "November Surprise" to steal the 2004 election is in full 
force here in Ohio. With polls showing a dead heat, the GOP is staging an all-out 
attack on a fair vote count in the Buckeye State.

Here are a dozen ways they're doing it:

Under an archaic Ohio law, both the Republican and Democratic Parties, or any 
slate of five candidates, may embed official election challengers inside 
polling places. The New
York Times reported on Oct. 23 that the Republican Party intends to place 
thousands of lawyers and other GOP faithfuls inside the polls to challenge 
voters. Republican insiders confide here that the key goal is to jam lines and 
frustrate new voters. The GOP apparently figures many voters
in key Democratic precincts won't wait in line more than 15 minutes to vote.

This is certain to be a major tactic in Cleveland's Cayahoga County and other 
Democratic strongholds. The GOP is not planning to challenge voters in 
Republican districts.
Republican party has sent letters challenging thousands of Franklin County 
students who are registered to vote absentee. Franklin County is home to 
Columbus, the state's largest
city and its capitol. Though it is also home to Ohio State University, 
thousands of local students go to schools outside the county or state. The GOP 
apparently does not want their votes counted.

This unprecedented mass challenge has prompted the Franklin County Board of 
Elections,whose director is a conservative Republican, to reserve the large 
Veterans Memorial
Auditorium downtown to process the challenges this Thursday, as John Kerry 
comes to town with Bruce  Springsteen. The  County has told thousands of 
students that if they don't appear in Columbus to answer the GOP challenges, they may 
lose their right to vote.
     
The Franklin County Board of Elections has called or written an undetermined 
number of voters who obtained absentee ballots, challenging their addresses. 
In at least one case, after a series of angry phone calls, the Board admitted 
there was nothing wrong with the address in question and
re-instated voting rights. The voter in question was a registered Democrat. 
His wife, an independent at the same address, was not challenged. It is unclear 
how many others
have been wrongly knocked out.
     
Even if they are counted, Franklin County's absentee ballot forms are rigged 
in ways strikingly reminiscent of those in Florida 2000. On many absentee 
forms, Kerry is listed third on
the list of presidential candidates. But the actual number you punch for 
Kerry is "4." If you punch "3" you've just voted for Bush. Sound familiar?
     
Franklin County's right wing Elections Director is insisting on e-voting 
machines which have malfunctioned in at least two Congressional elections, and 
which have no paper trail.

The November issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines ran 
the following  headlines on their covers, respectively: "E-vote emergency: And 
you thought dimpled
chads were  bad'" and "Could hackers tilt the election?" Vigorous protests 
against the paperless machines have been staged here, but many will be used, 
rendering a meaningful recount impossible.
     
In four other Ohio counties, the notorious Diebold company, whose CEO Wally 
O'Dell has pledged  to deliver Ohio's votes to Bush, will provide the e-voting 
machines to count votes
without any paper trail while using proprietary "secret" software.

O'Dell lives in the wealthy Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington and is a major 
Bush donor.
     
Twenty GOP-dominated Ohio counties have given wrong information to former 
felons about their voter eligibility. In Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati and 
the Republican Taft
family, officials told numerous former felons that a judge had to sign off 
before they could vote, which is blatantly false.

Franklin County, which normally cancels 2-300 registered voters a year for 
felony convictions, has sent at least 3500 cancellation letters to both current 
felons and ex-felons whose convictions date back to 1998. The list includes 
numerous citizens who were charged with felonies but
convicted only of misdemeanors.

Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has reversed a 
long-standing Ohio practice and is barring voters from casting provisional ballots within 
their county if they are registered to vote but there's been a mistake about 
where they are expected to cast their ballot. In this year's spring primaries, 
Blackwell allowed voters to cast provisional ballots by county, even if they 
were in the wrong precinct. But this fall, such voters will have to leave the 
wrong precinct and find their way to  the right one.

Blackwell hopes to succeed Republican Bob Taft as governor, and has labored 
hard to install e-voting machines with no paper trail, to give the statewide 
contract to Diebold, and to
take a long series of steps apparently designed to help hand Ohio to George 
W. Bush.Blackwell is being widely compared to the infamous Katherine Harris, 
who handed Florida to
George W. Bush in 2000 and was rewarded with a safe Congressional seat.
     
The Columbus Dispatch (which has endorsed Bush) and WVKO Radio have both 
documented phone calls from people impersonating Board of Elections workers and 
directing
registered voters to different and incorrect polling sites. One individual 
was falsely told not to vote at the polling station across the street from his 
house, but at a "new" site, four miles away. UnderBlackwell's new rules, such a 
vote would not be counted.
     
In Cincinnati, some 150,000 voters were moved from active to inactive status 
within the last four years for not voting in the last two federal elections. 
This is not required under Ohio law, but is an option allowed and exercised by 
the Republican-dominated Hamilton County Board of Elections.
     
Secretary of State Blackwell ruled that any voter registration form on other 
than 80-pound weight bond paper would not be accepted. This is an old law left 
over from pre-scanning days. Many voters who had registered on lighter paper, 
had their registration returned, even though the forms
had been officially sanctioned by local election boards.

No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. This year 
the GOP seems determined to win it, no matter what they have do to the electoral 
process.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of "George Bush Versus the  
Superpower of Peace"
and "Imprison George Bush", from http://www.freepress.org./
=========
Frightening times

Dear everyone,

Unfortunately the man described by his former Japanese teacher at HLS as a 
"pathological liar" and weak character seems to be wining the elections, and he 
might soon start a couple of new wars.

He clearly lost the televised debates against Kerry, despite being remote 
controlled,tutored and whispered by his advisors during the debates. As usual he 
lied about it (see Kevin Berger: NASA Photo Analyst: Bush Wore a Device During 
Debate", at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/29/bulge/ ). Despite 
remote control the Bush camp was on the brink of losing.

As expected, the 11th hour sort of thing happened. It is the Bin Laden 
video--released four days before the counting of the vote starts--that will help him 
to win. Be it the old friendship between the Bush and Bin Laden families that 
doesn't rust easily or the belief of some observers that Bin Laden remains 
one of the most valuable assets of the CIA, who knows.

Why will Bush win? Chiefly because the US voters trust him more to win the 
"war on terror" (a misnomer and false strategy). This seems odd taken the very 
fact that Bin Laden has not been brought to justice, "dead or alive" as Bush 
promised three years ago, after 9-11.

The result of the first Bush presidency does not support the voters' belief: 
Bush's "war on terror", which is in reality a war for oil in Iraq (predated by 
a military advance to the borders of China and the former USSR in 
Afghanistan), has resulted in the most effective spread of terrorism in
recent times.  Remember, we are talking about US-made terrorism. Modern 
Islamists terrorism exists since Brzezinski
convinced Carter (the peace angel) to fund and facilitate the building-up of 
al-Qaeda and the training of ten thousands of Mujaheddin, future terrorists 
(as Rashid convincingly disclosed), in order to undermine the USSR and 
China--for which Brzezinski has credited himself, when he was a little tipsy in Paris 
someyears ago. Bush's remote-controlling advisors are eager to beat 
Brzezinski's record and create havoc in even more countries.

Bush might win because reality doesn't count for US voters, especially for 
Bush voters. 75% of those still believe that Saddam had WMD and relations with 
al-Qaeda; despite all inquires that proved that the Iraq war was started under 
false pretences.

The Bush gang the most serious threat to world peace since the end of the 
Cold War. This small power elite is both, a relative novelty and aberration. It 
is the result of an unholy alliance of extremists, the `born-again' Christian 
fundamentalist hard right combined with Lukidists (radical Zionists) and 
neo-conservatives (PNAC). They are accountable to no one but "chosen by God". The 
gang, less than a dozen of "advisors" and officials, decided to invade Iraq. It 
soon turned into a nightmare.

They will increase the troops in Iraq, soon after the US elections, assault 
Fallujah and other no-go areas, but it won't help them.

The gang will have ample time to continue bulling other nations, invading 
resource rich countries and tearing down all rules of civilized international 
behaviour--until January 2009, if they don't go nuclear and start World War III.

Frightening times in the fore!
CP Scherrer
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