Ohio's HB 3 makes election fraud the law. Ohio is only the 1st state.

[Botany]

* No Recounts
* No Looking @ voting and tabulator machines hardware and software
* No challenging Presidential votes.

Not unless it can be overturned in court or overturned by a voter referendum
Diebold & E.E.S. will be able to compute the vote under the watchful of
people like Ken Blackwell. Coming soon to a state near you.

This is a very much an under the radar operation because most people in Ohio
are not really aware of what happened to them even after it became law.
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, The Columbus Free Press

Ohio's GOP-controlled legislature has passed a repressive new law that will gut free
elections here and is already surfacing elsewhere around the US. The bill will continue
the process of installing the GOP as America's permanent ruling party.

Coming with the swearing in of right-wing extremist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito,
it marks another dark day for what remains of American democracy.

snip

The ID requirement is the direct result of intervention by two high-powered Republican
attorneys with ties to the White House and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
Congressman Bob Ney allowed the Bush-Cheney re-election national counsel Mark "Thor"
Hearne to testify last March as a so-called "voting rights advocate." Hearne, whose resume
shows no connection to voting rights organizations, was responsible for advising the Bush-Cheney
campaign on national litigation and election law strategy during the 2004 election.

Hearne, with the help of Republican attorney Alex Vogel, concocted a story that the problem
with the 2004 elections in Ohio was the NAACP paying people with crack cocaine to register voters.
Vogel's front group, the Free Enterprise Coalition, even indemnified a local Republican operative,
Mark Rubrick, to file an Ohio corrupt practices act suit against the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, ACT-Ohio
and ACORN, The suit was later quietly withdrawn after discovery showed that the operatives behind it
were linked to the top levels of the Republican Party.

Ironically, the Republican Party engaged in racist and massive voter repression in Ohio and are now
institutionalizing that very Jim Crow-style repression and selling it as an election reform bill.

HB3 also ends the ability of the public to conduct meaningful audits of voting machines. Election
protection activists recently forced the adoption of an auditable paper trail into the Ohio election
process. In a state where virtually all ballots are cast and/or counted on electronic equipment,
this cuts to the core of the ability to monitor an election's outcome. The new provision in HB3 will
make the paper trail virtually meaningless.

snip

With today's passage of Ohio HB3, along with the seating of Justice Alito, the GOP grip on the
American throat has very significantly tightened.


http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1754

[Tesla]

1. And the 23rd amendment will be history also....

He's in it for the long run....

[Benfea]

2. RIP, democracy. It was fun while it lasted. -NT

[dwahzon]

3. Kicking

This needs a lot more publicity nation-wide.

[samplegirl]

4. This is just what I needed to read this morning.

I have said time and time again that the GOP
owns Ohio.
I still have friends who think Blackwell will not
be elected. They need to wake up and smell the
coffee.
This was a great post!
Nominated for sure.

[Wilms]

5. Election law opponents may try to get voters to repeal measure

Election law opponents may try to get voters to repeal measure
Some provisions take effect with Ohio's May 2 primary

By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU

February 2, 2006

COLUMBUS - The ink from Gov. Bob Taft's pen barely dry, opponents to Ohio's controversial new elections law are pondering whether to launch an effort to ask voters to repeal it.

"There's been a lot of discussion within all activist groups about what the next step should be," said Peg Rosenfield, spokesman for the League of Women Voters of Ohio. "Should there be a referendum or a court challenge or what?"

The Ohio House and Senate voted 57-40 and 21-12 respectively Tuesday to send Mr. Taft the final version of the bill, which, among numerous other things, requires voters to show some form of identification. The bills passed solely on the backs of Republicans.

Mr. Taft quickly signed the bill so that the 90-day clock for when it would take effect could run before the May 2 primary election.

snip

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060202/NEWS09/602020378/-1/NEWS