Ohio 2004 Election Thief/Uncle Tom Grabs Gov nod while (surprise! surprise!) voting machines malfunction

Ohio's Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has grabbed the GOP nomination for governor in a vote count riddled with machine breakdowns. In Franklin and Delaware Counties, election officials had to "shut down and recalibrate [machines] throughout the day," according to the Columbus Dispatch. Election officials use recalibration as a code word when machines are malfunctioning including the recording of votes for wrong candidates.  Blackwell became infamous in 2004 for his role in swinging the Buckeye State, and the presidency, to George W. Bush, with whom he met with on Election Day in Columbus. Karl Rove also accompanied Bush on his visit to Columbus.  Exit polls showed a clear victory for John Kerry until a massive mysterious late vote surge reversed the popular vote for Bush.  The state was later the target of the first Congressional challenge to an electoral delegation in US history.  Blackwell is the first African-American nominated by a major party for the Ohio governorship.  The nod is widely considered a pay-back for his role in stealing the 2004 election, just as Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was handed a safe Congressional seat after handing the state to Bush in 2000.  Harris is currently a US representative is now a candidate for the US Senate.  Both Harris and Blackwell simultaneously oversaw their state's vote count while serving as co-chairs of the Bush-Cheney campaign.  Blackwell has courted the extreme right wing fundamentalist church network in Ohio.  He now advocates an absolute ban on abortion, even in the case of rape or endangerment of the mother.   Blackwell's pious stand against abortion was recently tainted by revelations that he has owned stock in Barr Pharmaceutical's morning-after pill.  Blackwell also owned stock in Diebold while he was attempting to give the company a multi-million no-bid contract. But while Blackwell was handily defeating Attorney General Jim Petro for the nomination, Diebold and ES&S voting machines, both companies with partisan ties to the Republican Party, were at center stage.  Electronic and mechanical breakdowns delayed poll openings throughout Franklin (Columbus) and Cuyahoga (Cleveland) Counties.  In some cases faulty plugs were blamed.  In others the machines just did not seem to work. [MORE]