Peanut Butter Knife

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Catching Up

I feel bad. I've neglected the blog for nearly a month. Work has been so crazy lately that I just haven't felt the inspiration to write much, and when I do I can't seem to find the time or energy. And of course, the longer you put off writing, the more the pressure builds to write something good. Well, I need to put all that aside and take the plunge.

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If you haven't seen RFK Jr.'s article in Rolling Stone about election irregularities in Ohio in 2004, I can't stress enough that this is a must read. I never really got too into the whole "Ohio stolen election" movement. I think in part because 2004 was the first election I really worked on and it was hard enough that we lost that admitting that the election was stolen would have added another level of frustration and anger to the mix. As well, I read enough commentary on the internet that was based on bad information and conveyed a lack of understanding of the events in Ohio that led up to 11/2/04 that made me skeptical of any claims of fraud. Kennedy's case however, is a strong one. In particular what stunned me was the bizarre tallies in the heavily GOP western counties that gave Ellen Connally a higher percentage of votes than John Kerry.

What made me want to blog about this article however, was the article's constant theme: that nearly every case of election tampering, meddling etc. can be traced directly back to the office of Ken Blackwell. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) went so far as to say that Blackwell "makes Katherine Harris look like a cupcake".

It's 2006 now and Blackwell is running for governor, he's also still in charge of elections in Ohio. In a perfect world, an article like this would lead to a public outcry for Blackwell to resign as Secretary of State while he campaigns for higher office. Has Ted Strickland responded to any of the allegations in this article? I know he has a wide lead in most polls right now, but I do hope that his legal team is prepared to fight this to the end, because that is what it's going to take in November.

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive. From a Strickland e-mail, the New York Times asks Blackwell to recuse himself from the '06 elections. Nice!