DID BLACKWELL-- WITH 29% SUPPORT FROM OHIO VOTERS-- ALREADY WIN THE ELECTION?

Did you think Republicans are just going to lay down and play dead? I mean, sure, the vast majority of Americans hate their guts and want them out of office. But are middle class Americans ready to come out into the streets and do anything about another stolen election? Not likely. So all the Repugs have to do is fix a few easily manipulatable proprietary voting machines here and there-- especially where they have a cooperative Secretary of State. And surely there is no state anywhere with a Secretary more knowledgeable about election fraud-- like in the mechanics of it-- and with more incentive to do it, than Ohio. Ken Blackwell is a criminal and treasonous election stealer. He should not be in prison. He should be tried, given a last cigarette, a blindfold, put against a wall and made an example of (on TV) for any Republican pol who ever tries to undermine democracy again.

Blackwell can't quite breakout of the high 20's when polls ask people who they plan to vote for on November 7 in the Ohio governor's race. But this isn't stopping Blackwell. In fact, according to one Ohio attorney, who happens to be a voting rights activist, Bob Fitrakis, the Ohio elections may have already been won-- by the detested GOP. "Essentially, by purging these rolls, the Republicans, by shrinking the electorate, have already won in Ohio. If they can't win, which is what the polls show among registered voters, the way to win is to use their nuclear option-- to target black voters, young voters and the working poor-- by purging them so they can't vote."

Blackwell has simply purged hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls in Democratic areas. Fitrakis is trying to get the Democratic Party to join the suit he's bringing to court by Monday. "I would urge," says Fitrakis, "the DNC-- the party can't let this stand. They could proceed to Federal court and argue that this is a civil rights case-- against blacks and young people. They could file their own suit. They could join our suit. There are a lot of ways they could do it procedurally. They could intervene as an independent party. They could join our lawsuit I would welcome any action by them. They have to realize the election might have been decided by these purges. My book, that I wrote with Harvey Wasserman, reported that in 2004, the only reason the race was even close was because of the purging done in 2004 in the Democratic counties."

And if you think Ohio is the only state with Republican anti-democratic regimes in control, you probably missed today's New York Times-- although the Old Gray Lady is a bit more gentile about reporting the kind of electoral fraud that should send patriots out into the streets. "As dozens of states are enforcing new voter registration laws and switching to paperless electronic voting systems, officials across the country are bracing for an Election Day with long lines and heightened confusion, followed by an increase in the number of contested results. Arizona, California, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania are among the states considered most likely to experience difficulties, according to voting experts who have been tracking the technology and other election changes. 'We've got new laws, new technology, heightened partisanship and a growing involvement of lawyers in the voting process,' said Tova Wang, who studies elections for the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan research group."


Look at that list-- those are all the states the Democrats are leading by huge margins in the congressional races that would give them leadership of the House. And almost all of them have Republican governors and secretaries of state. Meanwhile even in California-- with a right wing Secretary of State in bed with Diebold-- Republicans have sent threatening letters to Latinos telling them they can't vote. [Photo on the right is the perpetrator of the Republican letters to Latinos, holding hands with the Speaker of the House/closet queen, Denny Hastert, who appreciates all of his efforts.] November 7 is more than an election between Democrats and Republicans. It is a time for America to choose whether to continue down the road to fascism or to reassert democracy itself.