Blackwell under fire

[MelissaB]

Blackwell gets brunt of registrants' anger
He denies trying to disenfranchise voters

Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Ted Wendling
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus- Democrats and representatives of voter-registration groups accused Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Monday of trying to rig this November's election by publishing draconian new rules governing the activities of people who register voters.

Testifying at a hearing chaired by Judy Grady, Blackwell's director of elections, lawyers for ACORN, Common Cause, the Ohio Democratic Party and other groups said training documents drafted by Blackwell's office are so vague that they subject registrars to felony penalties for even inadvertent violations.

...snip

Samuel Gresham, an attorney for Common Cause, charged that the rules are "part of a consistent pattern, intentionally so," by Blackwell to disenfranchise black, low-income and Democratic voters.

Blackwell's actions, Gresham and others said, are intended to suppress Democratic voter turnout in what is shaping up as a closely contested governor's race between Blackwell, a Republican, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland.

"It appears that Ken Blackwell finally figured out how to deal with long lines on Election Day," said state Democratic Party spokesman Brian Rothenberg. "He's just trying to outright deny people the right to vote now."


More: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1149582726265130.xml&coll=2

Thanks to RawStory here: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ohio_Secretary_of_State_accused_of_0606.html