Election Criminal Blackwell: Hypocrisy and the arrogance of power
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J. Kenneth Blackwell is at it again.
Ohio’s infamous Secretary of State and master of media distortion and
hype, earning him the name “Inkwell” among the statehouse press corps,
has announced his partisan agenda for governor of the Buckeye State.
Blackwell, Ohio’s first statewide African American office holder, has
rapidly moved to stake out the far right of the Ohio Republican Party
as his political base. The Secretary of State has found himself
consistently at odds with mainstream conservatives in the state’s GOP.
Last week, the Franklin County Board of Elections, under the control of
Republican Executive Director Matt Damschroder, obtained a temporary
restraining order against Blackwell. In another of his notorious
imperial decrees, the Secretary of State ordered all 88 county boards
to buy optical-scan voting systems from two well-known
Republican-linked companies, Diebold and ES&S. Republican Attorney
General Jim Petro issued an opinion stating that Blackwell does not
have the authority to limit a county’s choice as to specific types of
voting systems. Hart InterCivic, Inc. filed suit against Blackwell
seeking reimbursement for millions of dollars they had spent trying to
market their voting system in Ohio, based on the assumption that there
would be competitive bidding. Once again, Blackwell went to court to
make sure he would not have to testify under oath, and once again, he
succeeded. In December 2004, Blackwell refused to appear for a
deposition scheduled in the Moss v. Bush election challenge case
looking into the massive voting irregularities on Election Day. The
Associated Press (AP) reported on December 27 that Blackwell
“…requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as
part of an unusual court challenge of the presidential vote.” Blackwell
accused the lawyers seeking to put him under oath of “frivolous
conduct” and the Secretary of State is seeking to punish them with
sanctions through the Attorney General’s office. Republican State
Representative Jim Trakas announced on Monday, February 21 his bid to
replace Blackwell as Secretary of State. In a backhanded indictment of
Blackwell, Trakas, who is a seamless right-to-life Republican opposing
both abortion rights and the death penalty, said that people “seem to
be lacking . . . confidence in the election process.” “I don’t blame
that on Secretary Ken Blackwell, but the environment for the last
election really hurt that [confidence], and I want to restore it,”
Trakas said. [more]