by James Glaser
December 29, 2004

I don't know for sure what happened in the Presidential election in Ohio, but I do know that the Republican Party is acting just like a kid that has been caught in a lie and hasn't got the courage to "fess" up yet.

First off, I have to tell you that I think it is a blessing from God that John Kerry was not elected President. The man wouldn't even fight for his own votes in Ohio and so I doubt very much if he would fight for you and me. Also Kerry with his own words told the nation that he was a much bigger War Monger than George Bush could ever be. I believe in Justice and it was true Justice that the American public rejected John Kerry.

Now that said, I don't want you to think that I wanted George Bush to get a second term. To tell you the truth, I thought picking between Kerry and Bush was like the low point in my lifetime of voting. I came to believe that it was a real shame that those two men were the best that we could come up with and I think if the Democrats had come up with anyone with a lick of sense, they would be President elect now. All John Kerry could say, was that he would kill more terrorists than George Bush and that as far as he was concerned everything we were doing in Iraq was Hunky Dory with him. All America wanted was a choice, and the Democrats refused to give them one.

But this is still America and I love my country and one of the greatest things we have going for us is our Free and HONEST elections, but what happened in Ohio make us wonder if they are as Honest as the could be.

It certainly hasn't gotten as much ink as it should, but ever since election night many voters in Ohio have been calling "foul" and they want the nation to listen up to what they are saying, because they love our country too.

The Columbus Free Press in an article by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman writes, "Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell refused to appear at a deposition on Monday December 27. The deposition was part of an election challenge lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court. Richard Conglianese, Ohio Assistant Attorney General is seeking a court order to protect Blackwell from testifying under oath about how the election was run. Blackwell, who administered Ohio's November 2 balloting, served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign."

To me, it seems wrong and a huge conflict of interest for any person to be in charge of a State's Presidential election and at the same time they are the Co-Chair of the Campaign to elect one of those running. To me, that in itself is criminal, and if not criminal, then really poor judgment.

It is true that in Ohio, many predominantly Democratic voting places had voters in lines for as long as ten hours, while in predominantly Republican voting places there were no lines. Why, because there were few voting machines at the Democratic sites and many at the Republican sites. Here is the kicker, they had more machines, they just didn't use them all. I think the man in charge of the election in Ohio should testify, under oath as to why that happened.

Red flags always pop up for me when politicians don't want to testify under oath. I didn't like it when the President and Vice- President refused to testify under oath to the 9/11 Commission.

I know George Bush won this election by millions of votes, but I want to believe that every vote counts and I don't think they did in Ohio and I think we should find out what happened and why.

In the 2000 election, we had a lot of problems in Florida and it hurt our confidence in how "Honest and Free" our election process is. The world watches how we run our elections and what happened in Ohio this year has been reported world wide. We want the world to know that we do things according to the law, but when they see American Public Officials dodging court orders, about irregularities in our election process, it make them wonder what they are hiding.

Heck, it makes a lot of American citizens wonder the same thing.