2 election workers convicted of rigging '04 presidential recount

[Imagevision]

CLEVELAND - Two election workers in the state's most populous county were convicted Wednesday of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more thorough review of the votes.

Ohio gave Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16536269.htm

[saltpoint]

1. Ohio 2004 is a mass grave of electoral misdeeds by Republican

operatives from Blackwell on down to the lowest county GOP goons and hitmen.

The deeper we dig, the more bones of the skeleton we'll find, I predict.

[DRoseDARs]

2. Except these two convicts rigged to favor Kerry by 17 votes for the win in that county...

We need to be careful how this gets trumpeted. We all know that electronic voting is a poor-executed mess at best, criminal electoral fraud several times over at worst. I can easily imagine that those that count the votes see the writing on the wall clearly and may seek (if they haven't already) to through doubt on claims of favoritism towards Republicans, instead shifting MSM and public criticism towards Dems and Indys as a bait-and-switch. The '04 Election is a loss as much as the '00 Election was so long as Republicans had majority control in either or both chambers of Congress. Now that Dems have Congress, they need to act on these damned machines with the support of Republican moderates. Either they need to be as strictly regulated as ATMs or gambling machines in Nevada (many have called for a Nevada-style of regulation, which would be excellent), or the whole system needs to be scrapped and returned to pen-on-paper.

[saltpoint]

3. Distinctions are made. But I did not want the occasion to pass

without dragging Kenneth Blackwell's name through the graveyard mud, as it were.

There is also the case of the mysterious voting machine taken in Warren County, Ohio, for fear of "a terrorist attack," and left in a barn -- a locked barn -- until mid-morning the next day.

I've been to Warren County. Trust me. No terrorist worth his salt would bother with the damn thing.

[Hippo_Tron]

4. Was it a Dem or GOP county?

If it's supposed to be a heavily Dem county then Kerry certainly should have won by more than 17 votes.