You Gotta Fight For Your Voting Rights

We all know what went wrong in Ohio in 2004, but the Republicans were not only using their tactics to claim this battleground state for the presidential election, but they were also laying the groundwork for 2006.

John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, conducted an investigation into the voting irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 election. The results of this investigation are published in the report, “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong In Ohio”. This report lays out the actions taken by Ken Blackwell, Secretary of State for Ohio and co-chair of Bush-Cheney ’04.

Some of the dirty tricks produced by Blackwell included the misallocation of voting machines, the decision to restrict provisional ballots, and the rejection of voter registration applications.

But that’s not all - the Ohio Republican party practiced voter intimidation, and utilized partisan challengers on Election Day.

John Conyers’ report did not receive a lot of coverage from the mainstream media, which is most unfortunate. What is very disappointing is that for the most part, John Conyers’ report was overlooked, and the false accusations of, “voter fraud” from the Republican party were used to establish House Bill 3, ironically titled the, “Voter Reform” bill. In a nutshell, this bill requires that all voters present a form of I.D. before they are allowed to vote.

So who are the players in all of this? Check out this article from The Free Press. I guarantee that you will not be shocked to learn who is involved and which house on Pennsylvania Avenue the trail leads to.

It’s the same cast of characters and the same lines coming from the same corrupt party. Does 2006 belong to us? Definitely. Will it be easy? Absolutely not. As we prepare for the ’06 elections, we need to also prepare for a fight. The Republicans have a lot of tricks up their sleeves and they will use each and every one of them to guarantee a win. We need to make sure to take the fight to them and under no circumstances, roll over like we did previous years. Our country is in dire straits and it’s time to take it back.