Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell won the GOP nomination for governor Tuesday after campaigning as the best candidate to deliver his party from a year of polical scandals.
With more than half of precincts reporting, Blackwell led Attorney General Jim Petro with 55 percent of the vote.
Incidentally, the Democrat Primary is still a run away. Ted Strickland is still ahead by 56 percent. The Democrats have shown much more unity for their candidate than the Republicans have. This is a great sign for the fall.
The state's top elections official said Monday he accidentally invested in a company that makes voting machines.
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said he discovered the shares for Diebold Inc. while preparing a required filing for the Ohio Ethics Commission.
"While I was unaware of this stock in my portfolio, its mere presence may be viewed as a conflict and is therefore not acceptable," he said in a letter included in his filing.
Blackwell said his investments are directed by an accountant and financial adviser without his knowledge or help, "similar to a blind trust."
A "blind trust". So the man in charge of elections here also had financial ties to the company that makes the machines. Don't forget that Blackwell also promised to deliver Ohio to Bush in 2004 and was head of his campaign in Ohio. If there are any doubts that Blackwell is one crooked bastard then those should now be brushed aside.
In a scathing memo written by Richard Weghorst, Ohio's director of finance,
it appears that the wife of Tom Now, Bernadette Noe had a hand in the 2004
election which could of possibly changed the outcome.
In yet another surreal twist in Ohio’s “coin-gate†scandal, the wife of
Bush’s chief Ohio fundraiser, Tom Noeâ€â€Âwho is currently embroiled in campaign
finance and money laundering probesâ€â€Âsurprised poll workers and observers
alike by disrupting the ballot count during the 2004 general election, RAW
STORY has discovered.
Bernadette Noe, who served dual roles as chairman for the Lucas County
Republican Party and the Lucas County Board of Elections, sent twelve
“partisans†into a warehouse on Election Day, according a memo authored by
Ohio’s Director of Campaign Finance Richard Weghorst who was present at the
time.
The assertion is part of a comprehensive investigation prepared for Ohio
Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell regarding reports of
irregularities in Lucas County. The report found gross failures on the part
of Ms. Noe’s board in preparation for and administration of November’s
election.
Ballot Issues Aim to Change Ohio Politics
By JOHN McCARTHY
Backers filed petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures to put
measures on the November ballot aimed at curbing the power of elected
officials in the way Ohio runs its elections.
The coalition of labor unions and Democrat-leaning activists is counting on
support from voters disillusioned with a state scandal that has dogged
majority Republicans for months and was sparked by the revelation of losses in
investments into rare coins.
The measures would create a court-appointed board to choose congressional
and legislative redistricting maps, create a state elections board and lower
the limits on campaign contributions.
"We, the citizens, are supposed to drive the system, not the politicians,"
said Jan Fleming of Uptown Progressives, a Columbus community activist group.
"Elected officials now choose the voters, rather than the other way around."
The coalition on Tuesday filed petitions with the state bearing 521,000
signatures for each of three ballot measures. To get on the November ballot,
the backers need 322,000 valid signatures of registered voters.
Counties will have about two weeks to verify the signatures, said Carlo
LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's chief
elections official. If supporters fall short on valid signatures they will
have another 10 days to meet the goal.
