Mr. Wenzel:
I read your article with a mixture of appreciation and disappointment. There are several omissions of fact and misrepresentations that are unfortunately characteristic of much of the "media coverage" of this election's well-documented and widespread voter suppression and machine fraud.
In particular, I would have appreciated coverage of the following:
Of all those provisional ballots that were issued and rejected, what was the percentage distribution of Republican to Democrat?
Are we to believe that an EQUAL number of provisional ballots were issued in Republican districts or that they received an EQUAL rate of rejection to Democratic districts?
And what was the excuse for the couple, the Georges, who had lived in their house for 44 years and who checked and were told they were registered, only to find out when they applied for absentee ballots that they had been "dumped" in August but were never told? Why wasn't there a reminder sent to infrequent voters telling them they needed to re-register if they hadn't voted in the last few elections? The Georges are registered Democrats. Did Republicans receive "reminders" but not Democrats?
How many Republicans ended up voting in multiple-precinct polling locations where the chance of winding up in the "right place but the wrong line" was likely? Isn't it true that multiple-precinct polling locations were predominantly in Democratic-majority precincts?
How many Republican districts vs. Democratic districts were short-changed on the appropriate number of machines--the "Ohio standard" of 1 per 100 voters?
Your article states that "Democrats filed lawsuits in the days leading up to the election to change the way Ohio would treat its provisional ballots, but rulings from those lawsuits left the state's procedures largely unchanged." Why, then does Ms. Hicks-Hudson assert that "last-minute court action over how elections officials should handle provisional ballots may have served to compound the problem"? And, if so, why is it that Ms. Wolfe's Elections Division didn't ensure that the individual county boards of elections issue clarifications for pollworkers?
You quote Blackwell's "spokesman" Carlo LoParo as saying "There were several contributing factors" for the problem in Lucas County, and "that the registration drives conducted last year by independent interest groups created trouble in Lucas and Cuyahoga counties." Were these registration drives limited to Democrats? And were the problems equally distributed across Republican and Democratic majority precincts?
I believe you could use a more detailed understanding of "What Went Wrong In Ohio". I suggest you begin reading from a few more detailed sources before you write on this subject again:
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee Report: What Went Wrong in Ohio:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtmlwww.freepress.org
Malfeasance to prevent minorities from voting in Cleveland:
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahovs.html http://www.flcv.com/cuyahopb.htmlhttp://www.flcv.com/cuyahoga.htmlCleveland and Columbus:
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/alpage.htm