I haven’t heard much on this, but it is very interesting. Last year all state offices in Ohio went to Democrats with the exception of the State Auditor. That was won by Republican Mary Taylor. Now that the Democrats have moved in, they are trying to go throw what the Republicans have done and found some interesting items, particularly involving the former Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell:

Brunner has asked Taylor, who has a master’s degree from the University of Akron, to do a thorough audit of her office’s finances and operations under her predecessor, former Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who was by most accounts one of the sorest losers of the November campaign after being trounced by Strickland.

In a letter hand-delivered last week, Brunner cited five major concerns: shredding of documents, the disappearance of the shredding machines, more than $80,000 in bonuses Blackwell paid to departing employees, a depleted budget and 50,000 unsent letters to businesses canceling their corporate charters.

A spokesman for Blackwell has denied any wrongdoing and accused Brunner of playing politics. Playing politics? In state government? Really?

This entire article in the Cantonrep is very interesting. The article also posses the money question on this issue:

The challenge for Taylor as the only Republican nonjudicial statewide officeholder in a sea of Democrats is whether politics will influence her response to Brunner. A spokesperson said the auditor’s office is conducting a normal two-year review of the finances of the secretary of state’s office from July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2006. Taylor and Brunner have talked about Brunner’s request.

So will Taylor take the necessary steps to investigate this? There has been a lot of questions surrounding Blackwell, from his involvement in the 2004 Presidential election to his stocks in Diebold, while pushing for the state to use Diebold’s machines. As the head election official in the state, transparency is an absolute requirement. What exactly was Blackwell shredding and what about this money?

Hopefully Mary Taylor will provide her office and duties to Brunner to help get to the bottom of this. If Blackwell did nothing wrong, then there should be nothing to hide. As matter of fact, if Blackwell wants to remove the shadow of doubt then he would urge Taylor to press on.