« NRA Rolls Out Four Ads Against The Anti-2nd Amendment Team Obama-Biden | Main | Obama Using Alinsky's Marxist Tactics: Tells Supporters To Crash McCain Palin Events »

September 23, 2008

Obama's Ohio Crony Using Chicago Machine Politics To Disenfranchise GOP Voters

Topics: Political News and commentaries

Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has a reputation as the most partisan state official in Ohio, and she works hard to earn it. Now the Democrat's hack is using Chicago-style dirty politics, the kind Obama used to win election in Chicago, and rejecting absentee ballots for thousands of Republicans:

But it's not her first rodeo. Almost as soon as Brunner was elected in 2006, she tried to remove several Republican county elections officials, including Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert Bennett. They accused her of "storm trooper tactics" to silence critics.

Then Brunner spread an alarm that Ohio's electronic voting machines were vulnerable to tampering - a favorite claim of the paranoid left. Elections officials who participated in Brunner's study called her conclusions over-hyped "leaps in logic" and said, "The report itself could be viewed as an attack on the elections system ... (that) planted seeds in the mind of the public to mistrust those who oversee elections."

Brunner also demanded an overhaul of voting methods just before the March primaries, causing meltdowns in some precincts.

And now she's hassling Republicans who want to vote for John McCain.

Two Hamilton County voters have sued, accusing her of "the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters."

The John McCain campaign sent out more than 1 million applications for absentee ballots to Republicans. Each had a line at the top next to a box: "I am a qualified elector."

Brunner sent a memo telling county election officials to reject those applications for absentee ballots if the box was not checked. "Failure to check the box leaves both the applicant and the board of elections without verification that the applicant is a 'qualified elector'," she wrote.

But that's contrary to state law and Brunner doesn't have the authority, according to the lawsuit and an opinion from Hamilton County's Republican Prosecutor Joe Deters.

Ohio law allows voters to request an absentee ballot on the back of a grocery sack if they want to, as long as they include their name, address, date of birth, signature and either a driver's license number, last four Social Security numbers or a valid picture I.D.

There is nothing in the law about checking a box to verify a qualified voter. The voter's signature is enough, because that's what is checked to send ballots, said Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann, who ran against Brunner in 2006 and is now county chairman for the McCain-Palin campaign. "It's just bald partisanship," he said. "She's trying to disqualify likely McCain voters."

Continue reading: If Ohio polling looks like Chicago, 'thank' Brunner

HT - The Other McCain

Posted by Mike in Iraq at September 23, 2008 4:56 PM

Articles Related to Political News and commentaries:

• Obama's Ohio Crony Using Chicago Machine Politics To Disenfranchise GOP Voters - Sep 23, 2008