*On primary election day and night, there were major problems with the vote counting in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Cuyahoga County is largely Democratic and Ohio Sec. of State, Kenneth Blackwell, Republican. I mean, do we actually believe that Blackwell, the man who handed the state of Ohio to Bush, could manipulate votes? Really? Yes. There is a lot of finger-pointing but Blackwell has lots of conflict of interests with Cuyahoga County, as this Beacon Journal story indicates. Here is an excerpt:
...Brian Rothenberg, an Ohio Democratic Party spokesman, said that Blackwell's office signed off on vote collection procedures that led to ballots being lost and therefore cannot be an impartial judge in reviewing pre-election and Election Day policies.
On Monday, the party asked Blackwell to withdraw from the matter and appoint a special master to oversee the investigation.
Rothenberg said Blackwell has other conflicts of interest in Cuyahoga County, including his political association with election board member Bob Bennett, who heads the Ohio Republican Party and has helped the secretary of state raise money over the years. Lobb's letter is addressed to Bennett.
``Blackwell cannot be an impartial judge. The secretary of state's office is part of the problem,'' Rothenberg said, noting that Blackwell owns stock in Diebold, the company that supplied voting machines to Cuyahoga County....
Another story at WTOL-TV indicates that problems with the voting in Cuyahoga County centered on the Diebold Voting Machines!!!!! ...The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections met Monday for the first time since the problems surfaced. Ohio-based Diebold Inc., which made the electronic voting machines, has said that county-printed paper ballots did not have the proper coding required for the optical-scanners to work. Election officials say the machines weren't tested by Diebold soon enough to prevent the problem.
Here is an excerpt from the posted news report: