Reply #39: SOS candidate Judge Jennifer Brunner is on-message in every respect

[Kolesar]

Candidates Brunner, Greg Eastman and Tim Kettler each did a presentation Friday night. That was followed by a roundtable discussion and questions.

Judge Brunner recalled her first hint of trouble when SOS Ken Blackwell was leading a ballot initiative in Ohio--while serving as Secretary of State (!). That is an obvious conflict of interest. Even if it was not illegal, Blackwell should not have been doing that on the basis of taste and ethics. That initiative never proceeded for other reasons.

Brunner saw what Blackwell was doing to affect the outcome of the 2004 general election and was disgusted. She has extensive experience in voting issues. Being a judge, though, it was improper for her to speak out publicly on the matter.

Brunner decided that she wanted to run for Secretary of State. Before she did that, she consulted with her family and described what an obligation and a disruption to their lives it would be. (Not to mention that she would have to leave a very good job as Common Pleas judge).

Brunner then cited more details of the obvious chicanery that Blackwell was engaging in and speared the lame arguments of the Ohio right-wingers who just labeled her as a "conspiracy theorist".

She also noted that the Ohio Secretaries of State for the last sixteen years were Bob Taft and Ken Blackwell, who only sought the office to gain name recognition and to use it as platform to run for governor. Those two men did nothing to improve processes in Secretary of State's office. There were obvious problems with voting methods and new problems to deal with and they did not address the problems.

Jennifer described what she would like to see in a voting machine. The electronic device would create an electronic record that would be the actual ballot. At the time of voting, a duplicate, machine-readable paper record would also be created. The voter could verify the paper record matched the view on the computer monitor and the voter's intent. Brunner has misgivings about a paper-only system because of the stories of staff in the Board of Elections office sneaking a "stubby pencil" in there while counting votes, marking up ballots and causing "overvotes", thus nullifying ballots that were for the opposition. Jennifer admitted that she is not a "computer person" and that there may be some problems with this scheme that have to be worked out.

I am very encouraged with what I saw in the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State. She would do quite well in editorial board meetings. There is no reason that all of Ohio's newspapers should not endorse her (save for the fact that the Cleveland Plain Dealer is Senator Voinovich's newsletter, and the Columbus Dispatch is the party newspaper of the Ohio GOP).

I am happy that Jennifer Brunner came to the forum of the leftist activists to let us know that she understands us and that she agrees with us.

With her victory in November, I would think that the Democratic Party, and all people of reason, would have a well-spoken advocate of what is really needed to make elections fair and accessible to all the citizens of the United States.