Reply #20: Feeling better? Are you fucking kidding me?

[pointsoflight]

They've stonewalled every step of the way. Triad reps have tampered with and re-programmed computers for the recount. Election officials haven't followed the required process that precincts be selected randomly for the 3% recount--in numerous cases, precincts were pre-selected without observers even being present. In some cases, election officials went to a private room to compare the hand counts to the machine counts, declared that the counts matched, yet wouldn't let the observers see the printouts. In other cases, the the 3% handcount did not match the machine count, yet election officials refused to do a full handcount as required by Ohio law. Election officials in many counties also won't give access to poll books, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots as required by Ohio law. To this day, we've still not seen any investigation of why an ES&S official was on a tabulator before election day. We've also not seen any investigation or reasonable explanation for the lockdown in Warren county. Other election officials have been caught in boldfaced lies (e.g., claiming under oath that all machines were distributed on election day when we now know that 81 sat in a warehouse). Blackwell himself won't answer the 36 questions posed to him by congressman Conyers, and now says he refuses to go under oath and considers the request "harassment."

And what about all of the indisputable problems with the vote count itself? In Cuyohoga County, we know for a fact that the vote counts in many precincts are screwed up because they show as many votes for third party candidates as for Kerry. These have not be fixed. In other counties/precincts, official election results are showing over 90% turnout. Uh, no way. In one county with hundreds of thousands of eligible voters, the results claim that only TEN didn't vote. Give me a fucking break, there's no way that's possible.

There are HUGE problems with the count in Ohio. But the only thing you have to ask yourself is this. If there's nothing to hide, then why the stonewalling at every step of the process? If everything is on the up and up, wouldn't you want to give people access to the voting records to get them off your back and counter any and all concerns? Election officials all the way up to the top don't every remotely act like people who have nothing to hide.

In addition, even if you don't think there were big anomalies in Ohio, I don't know how any one can come away "feeling better" about the process. If anything, this recount has shown just how horrible the process is and how corrupt election officials are. They have no problem whatsover in violating Ohio law time and time again. And when people call them on their ILLEGAL activities, the response is that they're being "harassed."