[More on the Blackwell issues below from the NYTimes. Diane]
URGENT: Blackwell Protest Rally
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:56:16 -0700
Tonight Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State and Co-Chair of
President Bush's Re-election Committee, will be speaking at Cathedral of
Praise, 5225 W. Alexis Road (west of Whiteford Rd.).
We will be protesting his visit to Toledo starting at 5:45pm at Cathedral
of Praise. The protest will conclude in time for the 8pm GOTV meeting
with Marcy Kaptur at Democratic Headquarters.
Mr. Blackwell, who should be protection and insuring the rights of all
voters in Ohio, is today's Katherine Harris of 2000. It is a conflict of
interest for Mr. Blackwell to represent the Bush campaign while holding
the office of Secretary of State.
Appropriate posters are welcome:
Blackwell Needs to Resign!
Every Vote Must Be Counted in Ohio
We Won't Let You Steal Ohio!
*********************************************************************************
As Election Nears, Parties Begin Another Round of Legal Battles
By JAMES DAO
The New York Times
Published: October 18, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 15 - As the secretary of state of Ohio, J. Kenneth
Blackwell, a Republican who is unabashed about his ambition to be
governor, has issued a series of rulings on obscure issues like
provisional ballots, voting notices to parolees and the weight of
registration forms.
To Democrats, who say he has repeatedly tried to disenfranchise
Democratic voters with those rulings, Mr. Blackwell is reminiscent of
Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state who made her name in the
chaotic election of 2000. On Friday they challenged him again, filing
suit to block a directive they say will require election workers to
reject thousands of registrations by first-time Democratic voters.
But Mr. Blackwell's aides say he has been scrupulously evenhanded in his
efforts to guard the integrity of voting in this crucial swing state.
Each of his directives has followed Ohio law, they say, and most have
been guided by one unassailable goal: to prevent fraud. The charges
against him, they say, are baseless and political.
The legal combat in Ohio over the fundamental issue of who can vote is
recurring in virtually every battleground state this year, in what
experts say is fast becoming, in its final weeks, the most litigious,
lawyer-fraught election in history.
The two sides have been mobilizing for months, but in recent days the
battle has been joined on a number of fronts. In New Mexico, Republicans
unsuccessfully sued the Democratic secretary of state to require that
most new voters show identification at the polls. In Florida, Democrats
have filed 10 election lawsuits against Republican officials. In
Pennsylvania, plans by the Democratic governor to have state workers help
monitor the election have stirred Republican suspicions. In Colorado, the
Republican secretary of state has accused the Democratic attorney general
of not aggressively investigating registration fraud.
The clashes have followed a familiar script. Republicans, long suspicious
of urban political machines and worried about record levels of new
registrations in many swing states, say Democrats have abetted fraud.
Democrats, who cite a bitter history of efforts to deny minority and
low-income voters the ballot, contend that Republicans are trying to
suppress the vote. But thanks to the election of 2000, the attacks this
year have been fiercer and the legal mobilization larger than ever,
experts say.
"People are determined not to repeat history," said Doug
Chapin, director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan research
organization. "The unofficial theme song of this year's election
seems to be the Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again.' "
This week was typical. In Milwaukee, the Democratic mayor requested
additional ballots to handle a tide of new voters, but the Republican
county executive initially refused, citing concerns about fraud. (The
executive later relented.) But prosecutors in Racine, Wis., are now
investigating reports of dubious registrations.
Black and Hispanic Republicans criticized a Democratic National Committee
handbook found in Colorado. It included a section encouraging Democrats
to mount "pre-emptive strikes" against Republicans using press
releases raising concerns about potential voter intimidation, even if
none was detected.
"What that means in clear language is, if there is no evidence of
intimidation, which we don't expect there will be because we're not going
to engage in it, then make it up and talk about it anyway," said
Michael Williams, a Republican railroad commissioner from Texas who is
black.
Democrats said the manual simply instructed party workers to publicize
the threat of intimidation. And then, as if following their own advice,
they took the offensive on the issue.
"For decades, Republicans have engaged in systematic voter
suppression and intimidation, from throwing minorities off the voter
rolls to ripping up Democratic voter registrations," said Jano
Cabrera, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. "We make
no apologies for fighting these tactics by exposing the dirty tricks when
they happen."
Some of the maneuvering is clearly political spin designed to energize
party loyalists while assuring fence-sitting voters that their ballots
will count. "This is as much an organizing tool as a legal
tool," Mr. Chapin said.
But the legal preparations are very real - and very large. With more than
two weeks to go before polls open, lawyers recruited by the two parties
and independent groups have begun flooding into Ohio, Florida,
Pennsylvania and other swing states. Already, those lawyers are preparing
strategies to challenge new voters at the polls, to keep polling stations
open late if lines are long and to demand recounts if victory margins are
razor-thin.
The unparalleled preparations are being fueled not only by memories of
2000, but also by a huge surge in voter registration in swing states -
much of it in predominantly Democratic areas. Republicans contend that
many of those new registrations are fraudulent, saying thousands of forms
submitted by independent groups like Acorn and America Coming Together
may have been falsified.
Ohio has emerged as an epicenter for the mobilization. Registration in
the state has soared to a record 7.8 million voters, an increase of
700,000 since the beginning of the year. Republicans say about 60 percent
of those new registrations are Democratic voters.
With so many new voters, Republicans plan to scrutinize the use of
"provisional ballots," which are given to voters whose names do
not appear on the rolls, and challenge people whose registrations seem
suspect or who have not voted in recent elections. Though Democrats say
those challenges will be used to frighten Democrats, Republicans say they
will be used judicially.
"How is it intimidating?" asked Robert T. Bennett, chairman of
the Ohio Republican Party. "Why don't we call it voter
honesty?"
Republicans say they have established the most extensive legal operation
in their history, recruiting thousands of lawyers to help monitor 30,000
precincts in battleground states. The Bush campaign is also invoking the
battle of Florida in 2000 to raise money for potential recount campaigns
in swing states.
"This year, I am concerned about similar efforts by those who would
try to adjust the outcome of the election after the polls have
closed," Tom Josefiak, general counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign,
wrote in a recent fund-raising letter. "This year we may face
similar fights not just in Florida, but in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New
Mexico and other critical states."
Grant Lally, a Republican lawyer from Mineola, N.Y., says he plans to
"deploy" next week to Ohio, where he will dispense advice on
federal law to local lawyers via cellphone and e-mail from a Bush
campaign command center.
"The level of organization this year is exponentially greater than
in 2000," Mr. Lally said. "What you are seeing this time is
both parties organized right down to the precinct level."
Democrats say they are mobilizing in even greater numbers than the
Republicans, having recruited more than 10,000 lawyers to serve as poll
watchers or on legal "SWAT teams" in swing states. "We're
talking about a huge number of interventions to assure that the process
works smoothly," said Robert Bauer, national counsel to the
Democratic National Committee.
In Ohio, the Democratic legal effort is being run by David Sullivan, on
leave from his regular job as counsel to the Democrats in the
Massachusetts State Senate. This week, his team won an important battle
with Mr. Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state, when a federal judge
ruled that voters in the right county but the wrong precinct could still
cast provisional ballots.
Mr. Blackwell has appealed the ruling, saying it will lead to
confusion and fraud. Similar Democratic suits are pending in Colorado,
Michigan and Florida.
Mr. Sullivan is also helping to assemble teams of Democratic lawyers who
will monitor Republican activities at hundreds of heavily Democratic
polling stations around the state, mainly in urban areas. If those
monitors detect attempts to intimidate voters or slow voting in crowded
precincts, they are prepared to file complaints or to ask judges to keep
the polls open late.
Both parties will also be documenting problems that could be used in
lawsuits following the election to dispute results or demand
recounts.
Independent groups have also joined the fray. In Cleveland, the president
of the local N.A.A.C.P. has announced plans to recruit 500 lawyers to
monitor polling stations in minority neighborhoods.
And a coalition called Election Protection 2004 says it has recruited
more than 6,000 lawyers and law students to monitor Election Day problems
nationwide, particularly in minority areas. The group plans to have a
national hot line for election complaints and field offices in 17 states,
including one directing 700 lawyers and students in Ohio.
The coalition, started by the People for the American Way Foundation,
includes the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Voting Rights
Protection Program and an array of minority-rights groups.
Republicans have complained that the coalition is a front organization
for the Democrats because the member groups represent traditionally
Democrat constituencies. Coalition members deny that, saying their work
is nonpartisan. The coalition's Web site even advises that donations to
its member organizations are tax-deductible.
"Our concern is communities of color that might be victims of voter
disenfranchisement," said Sharon Lettman, the national field
director for the coalition. "One of the atrocities of 2000 was that
no one cared about the millions who were disenfranchised."
