Jesse Jackson demands Ohio presidential recount, blasts GOP election officials, and says Kerry supports the process
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
November 29, 2004
COLUMBUS--Preaching to a packed, wildly cheering central Ohio citizen congregation, Rev. Jesse Jackson blasted the presidential election back into the national headlines Sunday. Jackson said new findings cast serious doubt on the idea that George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Ohio November 2. A GOP "pattern of intentionality" was behind a suspect outcome, he said. At stake is "the integrity of the vote" for which "too many have died." "We can live with losing an election," he said. "We cannot live with fraud and stealing."
Jackson is the first major national figure to come here challenging the idea that Ohio has given George W. Bush a second term in the White House. Jackson emphasized that the vote "has not yet been certified" and demanded the removal of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell from supervising the recount, which Jackson termed a case of "the fox guarding the chicken house." Blackwell co-chaired the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio and has been widely criticized for a series of partisan decisions that have thus far indicated Bush carried the state. Exit polls by Zogby and CNN showed Ohio going for Kerry with 53% and 51% respectively, which would win him presidency in the Electoral College.
Blackwell says a complex series of rules allows him to limit a recount to just a few days. He says he may certify the Ohio vote between December 3d and 6th, with any recount due to be completed December 13, when Ohio's electors are scheduled to meet.
Jackson has demanded Blackwell recuse himself, saying "the owner of the team can't also be the referee." A broad-based legal team--now including Jackson's PUSH/Rainbow Coalition as Plaintiff--is preparing to file an election challenge asking the election results be overturned. Jackson says computer forensic experts must be given full access to electronic voting machines that have provided no paper trail, but which could be electronically analyzed from within. Jackson said he has spoken with Democratic candidate John Kerry, who indicated his support for the recount process.
New findings indicate that Kerry's margins in 37 (of 88) Ohio counties are suspiciously low when compared to those garnered by Judge Ellen Connally, an unsuccessful Democratic Supreme Court candidate. The calculations focus on standardized county-wide ratios between bottom-of-the-ticket tallies won by Judge Connally versus those won by Kerry in heavily Republican, rural counties. According to a wide range of experts, there appears to be a systematic removal of Kerry votes by hackers who overlooked the Connally votes, which now clearly infers something went wrong. "It's simply not credible that a vastly underfunded African-American female candidate at the bottom of the ticket could outpoll John Kerry in Butler County," said Cliff Arneback, a lead attorney for the challenging legal team. Jackson said the situation "does not pass the smell test."
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