Election Issues

My, my. The coverup starts in the Metro section lead which begins, “[Franklin] County election officials say they think a clerical error is to blame for 19 Columbus police officers having their voting addresses listed as the Downtown police headquarters.”

Now, if a lower-class black male had used his work address as a voting address, and tried to vote in the inner-city Driving Park area, the headline would have read: “Massive voter fraud uncovered in urban inner-city precinct: ACORN is suspected.”

It is a fifth-degree felony to intentionally register to vote at your work address instead of your residence. The police might enforce the laws, but it doesn’t mean they obey them.

As the Dispatch pointed out, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who supervises the vote in Ohio, “…isn’t particularly concerned about police officers registering their work address.”

None of the twenty-five activists for the Ashtabula County Charter Initiative, designed to move power back into the hands of Americans on how their county is governed, had read, or even heard of the newly released book, “Presidential Puppetry,” by Andrew Kreig.

They had come together in the tiny meeting room of the Board of Elections in Jefferson, Ohio, to let their voices be heard as the Board considered whether or not to honor the opinion issued by County Prosecutor Thomas Sartini, which cast doubt on the fate of a measure which has brought together people from every political viewpoint.

As they coalesced around returning power to the people they became another point of action in a country which is rejecting partisan politics and moving toward a civic model which echoes the vision which still lives in the minds and hearts of people around the world. Kreig's book provides the reasons why Americans must move past the politics of parties, embracing the power to locally determine how their government will work – for them.

The Free Press has covered the security holes in electronic voting for over a decade. In that time we have looked at both the hypothetical and real dangers of electronic voting. We've documented how the Bush administration stole the election in 2004 through internet based attacks.

This past year we revealed the Romney family's ownership of voting machines. We also documented illegal software patches being added at the last minute. We exposed an internet voting company and its ties to the national security state. That company, Scytl, literally ran and hid when confronted.

Iranians will head to the polls tomorrow to elect a new President. Iran has been a major player in the Middle East for decades and, considering the country’s loose remarks about nuclear energy and existential warfare throughout the past few years, all eyes will be directed on Iran come Election Day. This will also be the first vote for Iranians since the 2009 re-election of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A dismal occasion for Iranian voters, the 2009 election was almost certainly rigged in Ahmadinejad’s favor. However depressing, that election in 2009 did manage to inspire what became known as the Green Movement, comprised of Iranian moderates and liberals, which still seeks to reform Iranian public policy. Unfortunately for those Iranian moderates, liberals, and independents, the slate of candidates that will appear for selection on Election Day are far from reform candidates. If a candidate fails to win more than 50% of the vote on Friday, then a runoff election will occur on June 21.

Did a right-wing election observer falsify election forms? The Columbus Free Press has learned that the Franklin County Board of Elections will consider referring an election observer affiliated with the voter suppression organization True the Vote for criminal prosecution. The special meeting is scheduled Thursday, June 6, 2013.

Prior to the 2012 presidential election in Columbus, True the Vote filed an application with the Franklin County Board of Elections to monitor polling places in the inner city. This application required signatures from local candidates on the ballot in the county or county political party officials to be valid.

The Franklin County Board of Elections determined that up to six of the signatures on the True the Vote application were probably forged. This type of political forgery is a fourth degree felony under Ohio law and carrying a penalty of up to 18 months of jail.

The new push for internet voting is being spearheaded by charities, think-tanks and policy wonks that are in bed with right-wing fundamentalists, union-busters, unreconstructed cold warriors, semi-retired intelligence agents, child sex traffickers, militarists, and an odd progressive or two brought along for the apparent appearance of bi-partisanship. These forces, working together with an electronic election industry already fraught with ongoing allegations of fraud and partisanship, seem poised to push one more layer of obfuscation and unaccountability into an already deeply flawed system that is the American election system.

Tracing who is funding this strange alliance and magnifying their voices offer insight into who’s lobbying for hackable internet voting.

Next time you hear that voting machines are reliable and safe "because they have been tested and certified," think of this important article, which reveals proven corruption, payoffs and bid-rigging connected to Ciber, Inc., a firm that signed off on our voting machines. Ciber's okay was the foundation for federal acceptance of voting machines all over the USA.

A few weeks ago, I decided to examine electoral fraud from the other end. What happens if we start with known public corruption cases and work backwards to the intersection with elections?

What I found were kickbacks and bid-rigging schemes in New Orleans and Pennsylvania which both connect back to Ciber, the firm that supposedly tested and then signed off on most of the U.S. voting machines currently in use in all fifty states, on behalf of the federal government.

I learned of a now-admittedly corrupt government technology official who had placed, as one of his first priorities, setting up an Internet voting system.

The Columbus Coalition for Responsive Government today issued a preliminary set of endorsements for candidates to the Columbus City Council. The screening process was performed in conjunction with the Columbus Coalition of Concerned Black Citizens.

The endorsements are currently listed as "preliminary" because the three incumbent city council members have not yet engaged in the screening process. The Coalition has a four-tier rating:

1) Highly Recommended,
2) Recommended,
3) Not Recommended, and
4) Unfit for Public Office

In addition to the ratings, the Coalition has a Special Designation - Champion of Democracy - which is awarded to the candidate whose scaled scores rank highest on the principles of a representative democratic form of government.

The Coalition is pleased to award the "Highly Recommended" rating to candidates Nicholas Schneider and Brian Bainbridge, and the "Recommended" rating to candidates Greg Lawson and John Lively.

A bipartisan Ohio election panel released its recommendations for "voting reforms." An early indicator of how bad these "so-called" reforms came when Ohio's controversial Secretary of State Jon Husted immediately endorsed the panel's proposals.

"A lot of the reforms that are in there are things that I have long advocated for," Husted said.

The Ohio Association of Election Officials responsible for the recommendations is comprised of equal totals of Democrats and Republicans, but they are 100% party regulars, causing some activists to refer to them as the Ohio Association of Political Hacks. Under Ohio law, the two major parties get to appoint the top election officials in the state's 88 counties.

These party regulars agreed to eliminate Ohio's "Golden Week" of voting. During that week, voters were both allowed to register to vote at the Board of Elections and also cast an early ballot on the same day. Apparently the efficiency of such a system that made it incredibly convenient for voters to participate in the democratic process had to go.

Before you get overly excited about last week's Pew Charitable Trust study that indicated Ohio ranked 29th out of the 50 states in the quality of election administration, note that the data is from the years 2008 and 2010. The Columbus Dispatch put the story on the top of page A5 on February 7 with an accurate headline: "Flaws in U.S. elections widespread, Pew study shows." Readers should remember that Ohio's elections were administered by a reform-minded secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, in those years, not by the notorious Republican secretaries of state J. Kenneth Blackwell and Jon Husted. Both made practices out of disenfranchising young, elderly, poor and minority voters.

The Pew study used 15 criteria including unrecorded votes, waiting time, and uncounted absentee and provisional ballots.