[Mb-civic] blackwell

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Shocking Diebold Conflict of Interest Revelations From Secretary 
of State Further Taint Ohio's Electoral Credibility
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0406-27.htm

Ohio is reeling with a mixture of outrage and hilarity as Secretary of 
State J. Kenneth Blackwell has revealed that he has owned stock in 
the Diebold voting machine company, to which Blackwell tried to award 
unbid contracts worth millions while allowing its operators to steal Ohio 
elections. A top Republican election official also says a Diebold 
operative told him he made a $50,000 donation to Blackwell's "political 
interests."

A veritable army of attorneys on all sides of Ohio's political spectrum 
will soon report whether Blackwell has violated the law. But in any 
event, the revelations could have a huge impact on the state whose 
dubiously counted electoral votes gave George W. Bush a second 
term. Diebold's GEMS election software was used in about half of Ohio 
counties in the 2004 election. Because of Blackwell's effort, 41 
counties used Diebold machines in Ohio's highly dubious 2005 
election, and now 47 counties will use Diebold touchscreen voting 
machines in the May 2006 primary, and in the fall election that will 
decide who will be the state's new governor.

Blackwell is the frontrunner for Ohio's Republican nomination for 
governor. The first African-American to hold statewide office, the 
former mayor of Cincinnati made millions in deals involving extreme 
right-wing "religious" radio stations.

As part of his campaign filings he has been required to divulge the 
contents of his various stock portfolios. Blackwell says that in the 
process he was "surprised" to learn he owned Diebold shares. 
According to central Ohio's biggest daily, the conservative Republican 
"Columbus Dispatch," Blackwell claims his multi-million-dollar portfolio 
has been handled "by a financial manager without his advice or 
review."

Blackwell says he gave verbal instructions to a previous fund manager 
about which stocks not to buy, but failed to do so when he brought in a 
replacement. He claims the new manager bought 178 Diebold shares 
in January, 2005, for $53.67/share. He says 95 shares were sold 
sometime last year, and that the remainder were sold this week after 
Blackwell conducted an annual review of his portfolio. He says both 
sales resulted in losses.

Prior to the 2004 election, Blackwell tried to award a $100 million unbid 
contract to Diebold for electronic voting machines. A storm of public 
outrage and a series of lawsuits forced him to cancel the deal. But a 
substantial percentage of Ohio's 2004 votes were counted by Diebold 
software and Diebold Opti-scan machines which frequently 
malfunctioned in the Democratic stronghold of Toledo. Many believe 
they played a key role in allowing Blackwell to steal Ohio's 20 electoral 
votes---and thus the presidential election---for Bush. Walden O'Dell, 
then the Diebold CEO, had pledged to "deliver" Ohio's electoral votes 
to Bush.

Blackwell has since continued to bring in Diebold machines under 
other multi-million-dollar contracts. In 2005, while he owned Diebold 
stock, Blackwell converted nearly half Ohio's counties to Diebold 
equipment.

Those machines have been plagued by a wide range of problems, 
casting further doubt on the integrity of the Ohio vote count. A number 
of county boards of elections are trying to reject Diebold equipment. 
Two statewide referendum issues on electoral reform were defeated in 
2005 in a vote tally that was a virtual statistical impossibility. The 
deciding votes were cast and counted on Diebold equipment.

In recent months, Blackwell has ordered all 88 county boards of 
elections to send into his office the memory cards that will be used in 
the primary election, in which Blackwell expects to win the 
gubernatorial race. There is no effective statewide monitoring system 
to protect those cards from being rigged.

Matt Damschroder, the Republican chair of the Franklin County 
(Columbus) Board of Elections has also reported that a key Diebold 
operative told Damschroder he made a $50,000 contribution to 
Blackwell's "political interests" while Blackwell was evaluating Diebold's 
bids for state purchasing contracts. Blackwell denies the contribution 
was made to him.

Damschroder is former chair of the Franklin County GOP. He says 
former Diebold contractor Pasquale "Patsy" Gallina boasted of making 
the contribution to Blackwell. Damschroder himself has publicly 
admitted to personally accepting a $10,000 check from Pasquale, 
made out to the Franklin County GOP. That contribution was made 
while Damschroder was involved in evaluating Diebold bids for county 
contracts.

Damschroder was censured but not removed from office. On Election 
Day 2004, Franklin County voting officials told the Free Press that 
Blackwell and Damschroder were meeting with George W. Bush in 
Columbus. AP accounts place both Bush and Karl Rove unexpectedly 
in Columbus on Election Day. Damschroder has denied that he met 
personally with Bush, but refuses to clarify whether or not he was at 
GOP meetings with Bush in attendance on Election Day.

An eyewitness ally of Blackwell told a small gathering of Bush 
supporters, with a Free Press reporter present, that Blackwell was in a 
frenzy on Election Day, writing percentages and vote totals on maps of 
rural Republican counties, attempting to figure out how many votes, 
real or manufactured, Bush would need to overcome the exit poll 
results in Cleveland and Columbus.

Meanwhile Blackwell has run one of the most vicious primary 
campaigns ever seen in Ohio politics. A series of expensive television 
ads have assaulted Blackwell's GOP opponent, Attorney-General Jim 
Petro, vehemently charging him with extreme corruption and 
dishonesty. GOP operatives fear Blackwell's attacks could shatter the 
party.

Now Blackwell's Diebold revelations have both Petro and the state's 
extremely feeble Democrats jumping for joy. Petro, who has a large 
portfolio of his own, says he will pursue the question of whether 
Blackwell has broken the law. "Considering Ken Blackwell's history 
with Diebold, I think this warrants further investigation to remove any 
hint of impropriety," says Petro campaign manager Bob Paduchik.

Democratic candidate Ted Strickland has reported no stock portfolio at 
all. "If [Blackwell] doesn't know what's going on with his own 
checkbook, why in the world would voters want him to be in charge of 
the checkbook as governor?" asks Democratic spokesperson Brian 
Rothenberg.

The common statewide wisdom is that "Ken Blackwell will never lose 
an election in which he is in charge of the vote count."

But Ohio Democrats never seriously questioned Blackwell's rigged 
2004 vote count that put Bush back in the White House. They've 
mounted no serious campaign challenging Blackwell's handling of the 
tally in 2005. They've presented no plan for guaranteeing the integrity 
of upcoming 2006 November election, which will again be run by 
Blackwell, even though he may be the GOP nominee.

Attorney-General Petro has become Blackwell's sworn enemy. A 
rugged campaigner with extensive statewide connections, it's not likely 
Petro would quietly accept an election being stolen from him. That 
might explain Blackwell's vehement attacks on his fellow Republican.

But having accused his cohort of widespread corruption, and with a 
long history of scornful contempt for all those who challenge him, 
Blackwell's own Diebold revelations have opened a Pandora's Box. 
What comes flying out could affect state and national politics for years 
to come.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of "How the GOP 
Stole America's 2004 Election and Is Rigging 2008". They are co-
editors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of "What Happened in Ohio?" 
forthcoming in September from The New Press. Important research for 
this piece has been conducted by Dr. Richard Hayes Philips, Dr. Norm 
Robbins and Dr. Victoria Lovegren.

###

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