Reply #7: Ohio Republican State Representative responds(lies) in letter to editor [View All]

http://www.freetimes.com/story/324

Letters
Published June 14, 2006

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG

Last week's City Chatter repeated allegations made against Secretary of State Ken Blackwell regarding the 2004 presidential election ("So Dark The Con of Ken"). Many of these accusations have been made before. As vice chairman of the Ohio House Elections and Ethics Committee, I have had the chance to hear some of these allegations and find some answers.

Additionally, I participated in the election and can say from firsthand experience that there absolutely were problems with the 2004 election, but most of those problems were associated with mechanical problems, vagaries, and human failings not affiliated with any political party or candidate...

Editor's note: While it's tempting to dismantle Rep. Trakas's letter line by line, we'll stick to the two most important points. First, he claims that the 2004 election in Ohio suffered only from "mechanical problems, vagaries and human failings not affiliated with any political party or candidate." Strangely, however, virtually all of those "vagaries" benefited one candidate: President Bush. As writer Christopher Hitchens, no fan of John Kerry's, put it in Vanity Fair in March 2005: "But what strikes my eye is this: In practically every case where lines were too long or machines too few, the foul-up was in a Democratic county or precinct, and in practically every case where machines produced impossible or improbable outcomes it was the challenger who suffered and the actual or potential Democratic voters who were shortchanged, discouraged, or held up to ridicule as chronic undervoters or as sudden converts to fringe-party losers … Whichever way you shake it, or hold it to the light, there is something about the Ohio election that refuses to add up."

Secondly, Rep. Trakas is either lying or displaying gross ignorance when he claims that "these allegations have been thoroughly investigated and found to be not true." The only thorough investigation of the 2004 Ohio election — conducted by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee, at the request of Congressman John Conyers — found "massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio," many of them "caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio." The full report is available at www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf.
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