Reply #4: Page Two [View All]

The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Page Two
December 2, 2004

I. Counting Irregularities

A. Warren County Lockdown - On election night, Warren County locked down its administration building and barred reporters from observing the counting.’ When that decision was questioned, County officials claimed they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10” on a scale of 1 to 10, and that this information was received from an FBI agent.2 Despite repeated requests, County officials have declined to name that agent, however, and the FBI has stated that they had no information about a terror threat in Warren County.3 Your office has stated that it does not know of any other county that took these drastic measures.4

In addition to these contradictions, Warren County officials have given conflicting accounts of when the decision was made to lock down the building.5 While the County Commissioner has stated that the decision to lockdown the building was made during an October 28 closed-door meeting, emailed memos — dated October 25 and 26— indicate that preparations for the lockdown were already underway.6

This lockdown must be viewed in the context of the aberrational results in Warren County. In the 2000 Presidential election, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore, stopped running television commercials and pulled resources out of Ohio weeks before the election. He won 28% of the vote in Warren County.7 In 2004, the Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry, fiercely contested Ohio and independent groups put considerable resources into getting out the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike in 2000, independent candidate
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1 Erica Solvig,, Warren County Still Counting, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, Nov. 3, 2004.

2 Erica Solvig, Warren Co. Defends Lockdown Decision, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, Nov. 10, 2004.

3 Id.

4 Id.

5 Erica Solvig,, No changes in final Warren Co. vote count, Emails released Monday show Iockdown pre-planned, CINCINNATI ENQIJIRER, Nov. 16, 2004.

6 Id.

7 Ohio Secretary of State 2000 Presidential Vote Results,
www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/2000/gen/pres.htm. Gore received 19,142 votes out of a total of 69,078 cast (27.7 1%).