News Articles » Bob Fitrakis for Governor of Ohio

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November 6, 2006, Common Dreams
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Tomorrow's Outcome Hinges on Our Vigilance at the Polls

Excerpt: "It will not be enough to rely on polls indicating victory, or to call voters to turn out, or to merely vote on Election Day. No citizen should be turned away without an election protection monitor documenting it. No monitor should be turned away without full documentation and a call to the police. No ballot should be trashed without sworn affidavits as to why. No recount should be conducted without total public scrutiny."

October 21, 2006, ABC News
By Jake Tapper, Rebecca Abrahams and Eduardo Sunol

Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections

Excerpt: "Princeton University researchers using an Accuvote TS — a touch screen version of the Diebold machine — showed how easy it would be to deploy a virus that would, in seconds, flip the vote of any election."

October 21, 2006, Yes! Magazine
By Greg Palast

Recipe for a Cooked Election

Excerpt: "A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national election, ballots cast are simply thrown in the garbage. Most are called "spoiled," supposedly unreadable, damaged, invalid. They just don’t get counted. This "spoilage"” has occurred for decades, but it reached unprecedented heights in the last two presidential elections. In the 2004 election, for example, more than three million ballots were never counted."

October 19, 2006, Op-Ed News
By Rob Kall

Fitrakis to File Suit to Block Purging of Voter Registrations

Excerpt: "Ohio voting rights activist and attorney, Bob Fitrakis, says the Ohio elections may have already been won, responding to reports of massive voter purges in Democratic precincts."

October 19, 2006, New York Times
By Ian Urbina

New Laws and Machines May Spell Voting Woes

Excerpt: "As dozens of states are enforcing new voter registration laws and switching to paperless electronic voting systems, officials across the country are bracing for an Election Day with long lines and heightened confusion, followed by an increase in the number of contested results."

October 18, 2006, Free Press (Columbus, Ohio)
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

A "Loaves & Fishes"/Holy Ghost Victory for the GOP?

Excerpt: "It will take just two Biblical fixes for the GOP to keep the Congress, and thus solidify their power in this country, possibly forever: a loaves and fishes vote count, a Holy Ghost turnout."

October 17, 2006, New York Times
By Editorial

And the Winner is...Me

Excerpt: "The latest news from the state's governor's race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. The mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy."

October 17, 2006, The Economist

Crash and Re-boot

Excerpt: "The solutions are not hard to find: a wholesale switch to paper ballots and optical scanners; more training for election officials; and open access to machine software. But it is too late for any of that this time — and that is a scandal."

October 10, 2006, Scoop Independent News
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Ken Blackwell Campaigns With White Supremacist?

Excerpt: "Blackwell toured the state with Larry Pratt, author of ARMED PEOPLE VICTORIOUS, which advocates the creation of militant right-wing militias. Pratt has spoke and shared platforms in the past with Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi Aryan Nation members."

October 5, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer
By Bill Sloat

Fitrakis Would Bring Ohio National Guard Home From Iraq

Excerpt: "The Green Party candidate for governor, Bob Fitrakis, says Ohio National Guard troops should not have to serve in the Iraq war and that the state's chief executive has a duty to step in to block them from being sent there."

September 24, 2006, New York Times
By Ian Urbina

Officials Wary of Electronic Voting Machines

Excerpt: "A growing number of state and local officials are getting cold feet about electronic voting technology, and many are making last-minute efforts to limit or reverse the rollout of new machines in the November elections."

September 9, 2006, Online Journal
By Wayne Madsen

"Smoking Gun" Evidence of Massive Vote Fraud

Excerpt: "After the November 2004 presidential election, this editor reported on massive vote fraud, particularly in Ohio. The relevant articles are found here, here, here, and here. Sources within the U.S. Intelligence Community provided information on the financing — via foreign funding sources, covert intelligence networks, and illegal pseudo-banking routes — of programmers, election officials, and others to ensure that Bush and Cheney captured Ohio's critical 20 electoral votes."

September 8, 2006, Free Press (Columbus, Ohio)
By Harvey Wasserman

Ohio's 2004 Presidential Voting Records Must Be Preserved

Excerpt: "The ballots and computerized voting records from the 2004 presidential election in Ohio constitute one of the most important historical artifacts in our nation's history. They must be preserved as part of the essence of our democratic rights and traditions, and in the patriotic interest of future generations of citizens, teachers, students and scholars. The fact that the state of Florida has preserved its presidential voting records from the election of 2000 adds important weight to the demand that Ohio do the same for 2004."

September 7, 2006, Youngstown (OH) Vindicator

Judge Orders Saving 2004 Election Ballots

Excerpt: "A judge ordered Ohio's county elections boards Thursday to preserve ballots from the 2004 presidential election in a lawsuit aimed at removing the state's chief elections officer from overseeing the Nov. 7 election."

September 7, 2006,

"HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America"

Excerpt: "Dedicated editors Abbe DeLozier and Vickie Karp break through the confusion surrounding the issue of electronic voting and stolen elections by compiling a weighty treatise, "HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America," featuring 11 recognized experts on how electronic voting has stolen our democracy. Among them: Bev Harris, Lynn Landes, Bob Fitrakis."

September 5, 2006, New York Times

In Search of Accurate Vote Totals

Excerpt: "It's hard to believe that nearly six years after the disasters of Florida in 2000, states still haven't mastered the art of counting votes accurately. Yet there are growing signs that the country is moving into another presidential election cycle in disarray."

September 1, 2006, SaveTheBallots.org

Ohio's 2004 Ballots Saved For Now

Excerpt: "Investigators seeking to understand what happened in Ohio's 2004 presidential election have won a big victory — a pledge by Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to delay destruction of the election's ballots by several months — instead of disposing of them after Labor Day, when they could be destroyed under federal law."

August 31, 2006, New York Times
By Ian Urbina

Ohio to Delay Destruction of Presidential Ballots

Excerpt: "With paper ballots from the 2004 presidential election in Ohio scheduled to be destroyed next week, the secretary of state in Columbus, under pressure from critics, said yesterday that he would move to delay the destruction at least for several months."

August 29, 2006, WakeUpAndSaveYourCountry.com
By Sheri Leigh Myers and Sophie Goldstein

"Cheated!" Comic Book Features Fitrakis and Ohio 2004

Excerpt: "The newly-released comic book entitled "Cheated!", which features the efforts of Bob Fitrakis and others, draws from video and photographs to illustrate the story of the courageous citizens of Columbus, Ohio, who investigated and litigated against the massive voter suppression and fraud they experienced on Election Day, November 2, 2004. The authors of the comic are major supporters of the Fitrakis/Rios campaign, and have commited to donating proceeds from the book's sales to furthering the cause of electoral justice in Ohio."

August 7, 2006, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
By Jon Whiten

Marginalizing Vote Fraud 'Conspiracy Theories'

Excerpt: "As the 2006 mid-term elections near, it is worth looking at the way the press handled the important claims of vote fraud in the last election. Extra! examined the 2004 post-election coverage of major news outlets, focusing on the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, along with network TV news coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC."

Ukrainians 2004

July13, 2006, Columbus (Ohio) Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

An Open Letter from Ohio to the People of Mexico

Excerpt: "The patterns are much too familar to ignore. Those of us who saw first-hand how the U.S. presidential election of 2004 was stolen here in Ohio cannot avoid the conclusion that Mexico's presidential election is also on the brink of being stolen. Too much of what happened in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 is being repeated in Mexico 2006 to believe otherwise."

July 7, 2006, Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Democrats Should Pledge to Challenge Stolen Elections

Excerpt: "Lopez Obrador is saying in Mexico what the Democratic Party should have been saying in the United States since November 2000: WE DO NOT CONCEDE. And no Democrat should ever again be nominated for any public office without first pledging to guarantee a full and thorough recount, as is being attempted in Mexico."

June 28, 2006, Washington Post
By Zachary A. Goldfarb

A Single Person Could Swing an Election

Excerpt: "The experts thought about all the ways to do it. And they concluded in a report issued yesterday that it would take only one person, with a sophisticated technical knowledge and timely access to the software that runs the voting machines, to change the outcome."

Greg Palast

June 16, 2006, GregPalast.com
By Greg Palast

Secret GOP Hit List

Excerpt: "A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts. One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent overseas."

June 14, 2006, Scoop Independent News
By Michael Collins

Salon, Mother Jones and the Tortured Dialogue

Excerpt: "The prevailing silence on election fraud 2004 was interrupted June 1 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his article "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" The following material will demonstrate the weak, poorly reasoned, and utterly illogical approach Salon and Mother Jones used to try to debunk Kennedy's claims."

June 7, 2006,

N.Y. Times Editorial Denounces Blackwell Conflict of Interest

Excerpt: "Decisions about who can vote are being made by a candidate for governor. Mr. Blackwell should hand over responsibility for elections to a decision maker whose only loyalty is to the voters and the law."

Kenneth Blackwell

June 1, 2006, Scoop.com
By Harvey Wasserman

Why Is Blackwell Stonewalling Greens In Ohio?

Excerpt: "Green Party candidates who submitted more than twice the legally required number of petition signatures to get on this fall's Ohio ballot are being stonewalled by the state's infamous Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who has expressed personal contempt for the Greens' gubernatorial candidate, Bob Fitrakis."

May 26, 2006, Toledo Blade
By Jessica Weinberg

Media Should Report on the Minor Parties

Excerpt: "It is ironic how The Blade uses Frank Lausche's career as an example of a candidate who successfully offered something different while the media ignore the candidates who have entered this year's statewide races to institute real change. These include, but are not limited to, Green Party candidates Bob Fitrakis for governor; Toledoan Anita Rios for lieutenant governor, and Tim Kettler for secretary of state."

May 22, 2006, The Athens News
By Angela Rito

Green Party Candidate Plans to Be Force in Gov Race

Excerpt: "The outspoken Green Party candidate for governor of Ohio spoke at Ohio University's Bentley Hall on Thursday night, discussing the current corruption in Ohio and the nation's governments. "I intend to be a threat," vowed Bob Fitrakis, an attorney, author, investigative reporter and professor, of his potential future office. "I need to defend the United States Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic."

May 12, 2006, N.Y. Times
By Monica Davey

New Fears of Security Risks in Electronic Voting Systems

Excerpt: "With primary election dates fast approaching in many states, officials in Pennsylvania and California issued urgent directives in recent days about a potential security risk in their Diebold Election Systems touch-screen voting machines, while other states with similar equipment hurried to assess the seriousness of the problem."

May 5, 2006, Columbus (Ohio) Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Ohio 2004 Election Thief Grabs Gov Nod; Machines Malfunction

Excerpt: "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."

May 2, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer
By Terry Oblander

Independents Swell Ohio Races At Filing Deadline

Excerpt: "The governor's race got more crowded Monday. Robert Fitrakis of Columbus, the Green Party candidate for governor, filed petitions with Anita Rios of Toledo as lieutenant governor."

April 12, 2006, The Rock River Times
By Joe Baker

Viewpoint: Ohio Vote Counts Reek of Corruption

Excerpt: "If you still doubt there was any vote rigging in the 2004 presidential election, all you need do is take a hard look at the revelations coming out of Ohio. A large amount of excellent work has been done on this story by reporters Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman. They say Ohioans are both angry and amused at the latest disclosure that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell owns stock in the Diebold company, makers of the voting machines used in Ohio in the 2004 election, which Blackwell oversaw."

April 6, 2006, Columbus Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Shocking Diebold Conflict of Interest Revelations from Secretary of State Further Taint Ohio's Electoral Credibility

Excerpt: "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.""

Bill Moyers

April 6, 2006, Washington Spectator
By Bill Moyers

A Culture of Corruption: Let's Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics

Excerpt: "You may say, "What can we do about it? These forces are too rich, too powerful, too entrenched to be defeated." Maybe. But if others had given up before us, blacks would still be three-fifths of a person, women wouldn't have the vote, workers couldn't organize, and children would still be working in the mines. It's time to fight again. These people in Washington have no right to be doing what they are doing. It's not their government, it's your government. They work for you, and if they let you down and sell you out, they should be fired. That goes for everyone, from the lowliest bureaucrat in town to the senior leaders of Congress on up to the president of the United States. The stakes are too high for us to give up. Fortunately, there is something we can do. A movement is gathering across the country that could restore democracy to a country run by money. It's the "clean money" campaign for the public funding of our elections."

April 6, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer
By Joan Mazzolini

Workers Accused of Fudging '04 Recount

Excerpt: "After the 2004 presidential election, Cuyahoga County election workers secretly skirted rules designed to make sure all votes were counted correctly, a special prosecutor charges. While there is no evidence of vote fraud, the prosecutor said their efforts were aimed at avoiding an expensive — and very public — hand recount of all votes cast. Three top county elections officials have been indicted, and Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter says more indictments are possible."

April 4, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer
By Sandy Theis

Blackwell Reports Embarrassing Buy of Diebold Stock

Excerpt: "Secretary of State Ken Blackwell made an embarrassing announcement Monday: He accidentally bought stock in Diebold Inc., a voting machine maker that benefited from decisions made by his office."

April 2, 2006, Toledo Blade
By James Drew and Steve Eder

Post Gave Noe Voice In U.S. Mint Policy

Excerpt: "In the months before Tom Noe came under scrutiny for his state-funded rare-coin venture, he used a federal appointment to forge relationships with U.S. Mint officials that opened doors for him on Capitol Hill, documents obtained by The Blade show. And before he was brought down by scandal last year, the coin dealer helped persuade Congress — for the first time in the nation's history — to authorize the minting of a 24-karat gold coin."

March 16, 2006, Belleville News Democrat (IL)
By Robert Steinback

Stop the Election Day Cheating — or It Will Spread Further

Excerpt: "Anyone who questions the reliability of the election is assumed to be a sour-grapes bad sport who has fallen into the thrall of aluminum-foil helmeted conspiracy theorists. and the media, ever tremulous about affirming their critics' allegations of liberal bias, would sooner remove a hot radiator cap than make a mission of investigating the anomalies. But the anomalies were real. Many have been documented. They kept thousands in swing states from voting, and prevented thousands of ballots from being counted. Not incidentally, most of the 2004 anomalies benefited one party."

Thursday, March 16, 2006, The Washington Post

How To Steal an Election

Excerpt: "It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count."

Sunday, March 12, 2006, The Columbus Dispatch
By Mark Niquette

GOP Foes Both Did No-Bid Deals: Blackwell Denied It, But Takes Money He Rips Petro for Taking

Excerpt: "J. Kenneth Blackwell has criticized rival Jim Petro repeatedly in recent weeks for using lawyers who received unbid specialcounsel work from the attorney general's office as a "fundraising ATM." But a Dispatch analysis shows Blackwell has taken thousands of dollars in contributions over time from vendors who got no-bid work from the secretary of state's office under his control. "

Friday, March 10, 2006, Columbus Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Why Did J. Kenneth Blackwell Seek, Then Hide, His Association with Super-Rich Extremists and E-Voting Magnates?

Excerpt: "The man who stole the 2004 election for George W. Bush — Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell — has posted a picture of himself addressing the white supremacist ultra-right Council for National Policy (CNP). He then pulled the picture and tried to hide his participation in the meeting by removing mention of it from his website, kenblackwell.com."

March 10, 2006, Washington Post
By Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writer

Maryland House Approves Paper Ballots

Excerpt: "The Maryland House of Delegates unanimously passed legislation yesterday to ditch the state's touch-screen voting machines for the coming election in favor of a system that uses paper ballots. The 137 to 0 vote in the House and the endorsement of the plan this week by Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. represents a stunning turnaround for a state that was on the leading edge of touch-screen voting in 2001, and it reflects a national shift toward machines that provide a paper record."

Thursday, March 9, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Third Elections Worker Indicted Over Presidential Recount

Excerpt: "The third highest ranking employee at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has been indicted on charges of mishandling ballots during the 2004 presidential election recount. Jacqueline Maiden is the third board worker charged with six counts alleging that Ohio laws were not followed in the selection and review of ballots for the recount. The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison."

Thursday March 9, 2006, Akron Beacon-Journal
By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer

Summit Voting Gear Flunks

Excerpt: "The computer memory cards in the new optical-scan voting equipment at the Summit County Board of Elections have experienced a 30 percent failure rate in testing this week. A spokeswoman for the company that makes the voting machines said the problem can be corrected before the May 2 primary... The Summit elections board bought 525 readers — one for each of the county's 475 voting precincts, plus 50 extras. "With the majority of them, the memory card cannot be read by the computer,'' said Bryan Williams, Summit County Election Board Driector. He said company officials told him all the cards by the particular maker have been recalled in Ohio and may be recalled nationally."

Tuesday, March 7, 2006, The Miami Herald
By Fred Grimm (Opinion)

Election Official Hammered for Telling the Truth

Excerpt: "Ion Sancho may be a hero in California, where grateful election officials have verified the 'serious security vulnerabilities' in Diebold voting machines that the Leon County [Florida] election supervisor uncovered last year. Sancho is regarded a little differently in Florida. Florida's secretary of state's office disparaged Sancho's finding, demonstrating considerably more interest in propping up vendors than protecting elections. California, alarmed by Sancho's report, dispatched its independent... Advisory Board to conduct its own investigation. Florida, meanwhile, threatened to sue Sancho."

Fitrakis demands
accountability

February 28, 2006, Columbus Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Did 308,000 Cancelled Ohio Voter Registrations Put Bush Back in the White House?

Excerpt: "... at least 308,000 voters, most of them likely Democrats, were eliminated from the registration rolls prior to an election allegedly won by less than 119,000 votes, where more than 106,000 votes still remain uncounted, and where the GOP Secretary of State continues to successfully fight off a meaningful recount... In addition, it seems evident that the Democratic Party will now enter Ohio's 2006 gubernatorial and US Senate races, and its 2008 presidential contest, with close to a half-million voters having been eliminated from the registration rolls, the vast majority of them from traditional Democratic strongholds, and with serious legislative barriers having been erected against new voter registration drives."

Friday, February 24, 2006, PublicCampaign.org
By Bill Moyers

Saving Democracy

Excerpt: "Listen to what Theodore Roosevelt said one hundred years ago when he took on the political bosses and big money of his time for committing "treason to the people: 'We are standing for the great fundamental rights upon which all successful free government must be based. We are standing for elementary decency in politics. We are fighting for honesty against naked robbery. It is not a partisan issue; it is more than a political issue; it is a great moral issue. If we condone political theft, if we do not resent the kinds of wrong and injustice that injuriously affect the whole nation, not merely our democratic form of government but our civilization itself cannot endure.'"

Thursday, February 23, 2006, The Washington Post
By Brian Skoloff

Watchdog Group Questions 2004 Fla. Vote

Excerpt: "Harris said one machine showed that 112 votes were cast on Oct. 16, two days before the start of early voting, a possible sign of tampering. She said the group found evidence of tampering on more than 30 machines in the county."

Monday, February 20, 2006, Washington Post Editorial

Paper Trail Politics

Excerpt: "After dawdling for a good two years and defending a certifiably untrustworthy voting process in Maryland, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) announced last week that he, too, has lost confidence in the state's ability to conduct fair and secure elections this fall. A curiously tardy call, Governor, but welcome aboard: Time is short, but now an all-out effort to clean up the system before the elections can and should begin."

Monday, February 13, 2006, Cleveland.com (AP Story)
By John Seewer

Politically Connected Ohio Coin Dealer Charged with Stealing

Excerpt: "A coin dealer and GOP fundraiser hired to manage an unorthodox state investment in rare coins was charged Monday with embezzling at least $1 million in an election-year scandal that has sent Ohio Republicans running for cover."

Saturday, February 11, 2006, Dayton Daily News
By Jim Bebbington

Green Party Candidate Counting on Errors

Excerpt: "Touch-screen voting systems are open to fraud, [Fitrakis] said, and disconnect people's votes from the paper record that's printed and stored as a backup. Fritakis said the systems are not transparent and should be replaced with systems that use computer touch pads but that physically type the votes onto a paper ballot as the voter watches, and then officials should count the paper ballots."

Diebold: Privatizing
democracy

Saturday, February 11, 2006, Finanzen.net

Scott+Scott, LLC to File Lead Plaintiff Motion in Class Against Diebold This Monday

Excerpt: "According to the complaint, Diebold remained unable to assure the quality and working order of its voting machine products. It is further alleged that the Company's false and misleading statements served to conceal the dimensions and scope of internal problems at the Company, impacting product quality, strategic planning, forecasting and guidance and culminating in false representations of astonishingly low and incredibly inaccurate restructuring charges for the 2005 fiscal year, which grossly understated the true costs and problems defendants faced to restructure the Company. The complaint also alleges over $2.7 million of insider trading proceeds obtained by individual defendants during the Class Period."

Diebold: Who Gets
Glitched?

Friday, February 10, 2006, FreeMarketNews.com

Diebold Chief Says Fate of E-voting Unit Under Review

Excerpt: "Diebold's new chief executive, Thomas Swidarski, said he will be deciding whether the company should continue investing in its electronic voting business. The CEO insists that the e-voting machines are safe and reliable despite the controversy surrounding the 2000 election and other reported election glitches. There have been numerous eyewitness reports of vote tampering using the machines which, for some reason, do not provide a paper trail."

Friday, February 10, 2006, Rutgers University News

NJ Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of Electronic Voting Machines

Excerpt: "The lawsuit is the first in the nation to successfully challenge electronic voting machines. Professor Penny Venetis, associate director of the clinic and lead counsel on the case, commented, "This shows that our courts take very seriously their role in protecting our most fundamental of all rights — the right to vote."

Sunday, February 5, 2006, Middletown Journal (Dayton)
By Ed Richter

Carlisle Plans Re-vote on Fire/EMS Levy

Excerpt: ". . . election results were set aside due to voting irregularities from the new electronic touch screen voting machines. More votes were cast than there were registered voters in the city's Montgomery County precinct. The city contested the results, and the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court ordered Tuesday’s special election at Montgomery County's cost."

February 2, 2006, Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Alito Takes Seat While Ohio GOP Guts Election Protection

Excerpt: "Ohio's GOP-controlled legislature has passed a repressive new law that will gut free elections here and is already surfacing elsewhere around the US. The bill will continue the process of installing the GOP as America's permanent ruling party. Coming with the swearing in of right-wing extremist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, it marks another dark day for what remains of American democracy."

Tuesday, January 31, 2006, Columbus Free Press
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Ohio GOP Poised to Gut Election Protection on Way to Permanent National Domination

Excerpt: "Ohio's GOP-controlled legislature is poised to pass a repressive new law that will gut free elections here and is already surfacing around the US. The bill is designed to help end free elections and continue the process of installing the GOP as America's permanent ruling party."

Tuesday, January 24, 2006, Anchorage Daily News
By Lisa Demer

Alaska Rebuffs Demand to Turn Over Diebold Voting Files

Excerpt: "Democrats . . . contend more than 2,000 Alaskans cast valid absentee ballots that weren't counted in official totals. Unless they get the entire file, they won't be able to understand what caused the 'bizarre and inaccurate reports' from Alaska's 2004 election, they say. 'These votes belong to us,' Brown said. 'These are all public record. It's wrong that a contractor like Diebold can keep us from seeing the record.'"

January 22, 2006, Washington Post
By Zachary Goldfarb

As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security

Excerpt: "As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself. Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques."

January 19, 2006, Computerworld
By Marc L. Songini

E-voting systems hacker sees 'particularly bad' security issues

Excerpt: "Herbert Thompson, director of research at Wilmington, Mass.-based Security Innovation and e-voting security expert, reports: 'On Tuesday, Dec. 13, we conducted a hack of the Diebold AccuVote optical scan device. I wrote a five-line script in Visual Basic that would allow you to go into the central tabulator and change any vote total you wanted, leaving no logs.'"

January 11, 2006, Columbus Dispatch
By Carl P. Leubsdorf

Clean Sweep of Leadership is Needed

Excerpt: "Rep. Tom DeLay's decision to bow to reality and surrender his leadership post cleared the way for Republicans to install a new leader. What they do will show whether they've gotten the message or are proceeding with business as usual. It's also clear that the House GOP isn't the only congressional party that needs a leadership shake-up. There's a good case that both parties in both houses would benefit from a new look at the top."

January 1, 2006, New York Times (Editorial)

Conspiring Against the Voters

Excerpt: "President Bush has announced four nominees for the Federal Election Commission, choices that would keep the policing of campaign abuses firmly in the hands of party wheel horses. The timing of the announcement — the president waited until the Senate had gone home — is likely to allow the nominees to avoid the full hearing and confirmation process needed to evaluate them properly."

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