Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy

[HomerRamone]

slosteve posted this in Editorials, but it demands more readers...

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1607

With new legislation, Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
December 6, 2005

A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and to be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal US Senate seat in 2006, are about to end.

House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.

HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over.

<...> HB3 will solidify the GOP's iron grip on the electronic voting process and all that surrounds it. Unless they break that grip, Democrats who believe they can carry any part of Ohio in 2006 or 2008 are kidding themselves.

When it comes to 2008, can you say "Jeb Bush"?

--
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available at www.Freepress.org. Their WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO, written with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published by the New Press in 2006. Fitrakis was one of the attorneys targeted by Blackwell and Petro in 2004.

MORE: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1607

[Liberty Belle]

1. Loathesome and depressing, but important. KICK! How to stop this?

[theHandpuppet]

2. A kick of disgust

Shame, Ohio!

[AuntiBush]

4. Shame on them all!

The bushiemobsters!

[AuntiBush]

3. This is Despicable!!!

What happened to our country? How can any decent American stand for this? If I seen my Democrat Party try something like this I'd be outraged for my fellow citizens.

If Jeb is elected and another fiasco goes down in 2008 I'll move to Canada.
It will be the final straw. And, I'm having a lot of them under *&CO!

[niallmac]

7. I agree totally, but about this Canada thing...

It's so damn cold and I don't have a license to work in Canada. Cannot the millions who I know are out there and feel the same way take over their own state?
Sounds like a joke I know but in a sober moment could not this be a possibility?
Not so cold, still in a land I consider my country but without the fundy dumbing down robot anti intellectual BS.
Just thinkin out loud.

[byronius]

5. When the tide turns, and it will ---

I insist that we root them out, down to the last little crook. No compromise. GET OFF MY PLANET, NAZIS!

[snot]

6. Kicked and nom'd -- nt

[StellaBlue]

8. Yeah, what's new?

I'm in Texas. Been there, seen that.

:scared:

FUCK EM ALL!

I WANNA BE THE MINORITY!!!

[rucky]

9. K&R

[FreedomAngel82]

10. This is horrible

:( So no democrat elected for Senate either eh? :(

[Wilms]

11. kick n/t

[The Judged]

12. Actually, by 2008 Noelle W might be the selected one.

[drm604]

13. Kick

:kick:

[Rebelry]

14. This sounds unbelievable!

[mikelewis]

15. I swear to GOD I am moving out of Ohio.... Fuck this retarded broke-dick..

state.