According to Bob Fitrakis in The Free Press, a dangerous dictat is about to emerge from the Ohio legislature:"Top level Republican operatives with ties to the White House, Senate Majority Leader William Frist and the Republican National Committee (RNC) not only engaged in the suppression of poor and minority voters in the 2004 Ohio presidential election' but they spun the election irregularities into a story linking blacks to cocaine and voter fraud. Bush allies in Ohio are now using this myth of voter fraud to pass a repressive 'election reform' bill.
"In the month prior to and immediately after the 2004 presidential election' the Republican Party engaged in an orchestrated campaign to divert the mainstream media focus away from election fraud and irregularities in Ohio and manufactured the myth of 'voter fraud.'
"According to a former Columbus Dispatch reporter' Ohio Senator Mike Dewine sent his spokesperson' Mike Dawson' to meet with the editorial board of the Dispatch and other Ohio newspapers. The primary talking point for the GOP was that there was no evidence of irregularities in Ohio.
"The Republican state legislature used the 'voter fraud' spin to introduce the draconian Ohio House Bill 3. The 'election reform' bill has passed both Republican-dominated houses and is awaiting a conference committee at the start of the new year.
"HB 3's most publicized provision will require voters to show their ID before casting a ballot. But it also opens voter registration activists to criminal prosecution' exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny' quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or' indeed' any federal election result in Ohio. "
No comments:
Post a Comment